Why it matters
The producer
Apros makes three vermouths in Freiburg, in the Black Forest edge of Baden. Matthias Sasse, restaurateur Achim Berger, and winemaker Johannes von Gleichenstein founded the company in 2019. Von Gleichenstein brought the base wine connection: Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris from the Kaiserstuhl, the volcanic hill south of Freiburg that produces some of Baden's warmest and most concentrated Pinot fruit. The botanicals, around sixteen in total, come predominantly from the surrounding Black Forest. Both the wine and the plants share the same landscape, giving a three-expression range built on a clear regional logic.
The name encodes that logic. In Latin, apros means wild boar, an animal native to the Black Forest. The founders chose it deliberately: not a word from the aperitif vocabulary, but from the forest itself.
Place and vineyards
Where the wines begin
Freiburg sits at the western edge of the Black Forest, where the Vosges-Schwarzwald trough brings together some of Baden's warmest vineyards and one of Germany's most diverse foraging landscapes. The Kaiserstuhl, the volcanic outcrop that forms Apros's Pinot source, sits in the Rhine plain between Freiburg and the Alsace border. Its basalt and loess soils warm quickly in spring and hold heat through the growing season, giving Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris the ripeness and body to function as a fortified base wine. Baden's classification as one of Germany's warmest wine regions is visible in those grapes: fuller, softer, and more texture-rich than Pinot from cooler German zones.
Wines to know
The range in view
The range is White, Rosé, and Red, all at 18% ABV. The Rosé is the most fully documented of the three. It is built on Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris from the Kaiserstuhl and carries approximately sixteen botanicals, including rosemary, pink pepper, orange peel, angelica root, liquorice, and eucalyptus. In the glass it gives bitter orange, a subtle herbal sharpness, and a finish of delicate bitterness. The White and Red expressions draw on the same Pinot-from-Baden foundation and the same Black Forest botanical sourcing, completing a range intended for service on ice, long with tonic, or in Negroni and Americano builds where the botanical weight holds against the other spirits.