Why it matters
The producer
Heitlinger is owned by the Heiler and Jacklin families and has been a VDP member since 2012. Claus Burmeister leads the business and Daniel Rupp is cellarmaster. Pinot Noir, Pinot Blanc and Pinot Gris sit at the centre because the estate’s Kraichgau sites are planted predominantly to the Pinot family; Chardonnay, Auxerrois and Riesling widen the white-wine range.
Albert Heitlinger founded the estate in 1960. Today, Heitlinger and nearby Burg Ravensburg remain separate legal estates, though they share management and vinify their wines in a Tiefenbach winery built in 2012. The shared cellar brings two estates under one roof for harvest and élevage, while each name continues to appear on its own bottles.
Place and vineyards
Where the wines begin
Tiefenbach lies in the Kraichgau, a hilly part of northern Baden with vineyards spread around villages including Odenheim, Hilsbach and Tiefenbach. Those village names matter on the label because Heitlinger moves from broad Gutswein and Ortswein bottlings towards Reserve wines and VDP.Grosse Lage wines tied to individual sites. Königsbecher Pinot Noir GG, for example, comes from the Königsbecher vineyard in Odenheim rather than from a blended estate parcel.
The vineyard ground includes limestone marl in several forms, coloured marl, Stuben sandstone, loess and clay. This mix gives the estate practical reasons to keep parcels separate: soil and microclimate are assessed before harvest, then fruit is sorted for individual wines. Pinot varieties are the dominant planting across these slopes, while sites such as Eichelberg, Spiegelberg, Wormsberg, Schellenbrunnen and Heinberg carry the names used for the top vineyard bottlings.
In the cellar
Vineyards and cellar
Heitlinger became certified organic in 2010 and began working according to biodynamic principles in 2014. Compost, horn manure and horn silica preparations, and work to encourage flora and fauna are part of the vineyard programme; sheep, drones, robots and manual labour are used according to the season. These choices concern the condition and timing of the fruit before it reaches the cellar.
Grapes are hand picked, with optical sorting used after harvest. Gravity-fed must handling and reduced pumping limit mechanical movement of the juice, while a screw press is used in the cellar. For the red Königsbecher Pinot Noir GG, spontaneous fermentation in wood and 18 months in new and used barriques bring oak spice and a broader texture to Pinot Noir fruit.
Wines to know
The range in view
The range begins with Heitlinger-labelled wines including Riesling, Pinot Blanc, Auxerrois, Pinot Gris, Pinot Noir, rosé and red or white blends. These dry wines establish the estate’s grape vocabulary: citrus and fresh fruit in the whites, or cherry fruit and tannin in Pinot Noir. Blanc de Noir Brut, made from Pinot Meunier, adds a sparkling wine with mousse to the line-up.
Reserve bottlings take in Hilsbach Chardonnay, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris, Pinot Meunier and Pinot Noir, alongside Hassapfel Auxerrois. Above them, the VDP.Grosse Lage wines isolate named sites: Eichelberg Pinot Blanc GG, Spiegelberg Pinot Gris GG, Königsbecher and Wormsberg Pinot Noir GG, Schellenbrunnen Riesling GG and Heinberg Chardonnay GG. The progression is structural as well as nominal: individual vineyard wines receive a narrower grape-and-site focus, while the broader wines present the estate’s dry style across several parcels.
A useful way in
A bottle to begin with
Begin with Königsbecher Pinot Noir GG when the aim is to meet Heitlinger through its defining grape and a named Kraichgau vineyard. It is a dry, single-vineyard Pinot Noir from Odenheim, fermented spontaneously in wood and matured for 18 months in barriques. In the documented 2015, ripe cherry, dark berries and spice sit over a broad palate; velvet-textured tannin and acidity keep the fruit moving through a long finish. It brings together Pinot planting, parcel selection and extended oak ageing in one bottle.