Why it matters
The producer
Weingut Steintal is a Klingenberg estate built around Spätburgunder rather than the broad white-wine picture often associated with Franken. Its 11 hectares are spread across Klingenberg, Großheubach and Bürgstadt, but nine-tenths are planted to Pinot Noir; the result is a focused red-wine range that moves from sandstone-led estate wine to an old-vine Klingenberg bottling and a Schlossberg Grosses Gewächs. Philipp Aufderheide is the person continuing the winery in Klingenberg today.
The present estate began in 1912, when the town acquired the old Rentamt building and established the municipally owned Weingut der Stadt Klingenberg. Benedikt Baltes acquired and privatized the property in 2010, bringing the estate into private hands while retaining its Klingenberg base and vineyard focus. The later Steintal name puts the red-sandstone terraces at the centre of the bottle story, so a wine labelled Buntsandstein is rooted in the same landscape that reshaped the estate’s public name.
Place and vineyards
Where the wines begin
Klingenberg lies in the Main valley, where Steintal works steep, terraced vineyard ground alongside holdings in Großheubach and Bürgstadt. The place appears directly on the labels: Klingenberg Spätburgunder Alte Reben is a village wine, while Klingenberg Schlossberg names a particular vineyard site. Those names narrow the origin from the estate’s wider sandstone landscape to older vines and then to Schlossberg, helping explain why the range is arranged by place rather than by a collection of unrelated cuvées.
Red Buntsandstein is the physical thread through Steintal’s vineyards. The estate links its name to this red sandstone, as well as the protected terraces and steep slopes around Klingenberg. In the glass, the most immediate consequence is not a promised flavour but a coherent frame for the Pinot Noir range: the Buntsandstein bottling names the ground beneath the vines, while Schlossberg takes the label from a more narrowly defined site.
In the cellar
Vineyards and cellar
Steintal states that it farms sustainably and ecologically, keeps yields low and harvests every parcel by hand. Low yields and hand selection concentrate the cellar’s attention on the fruit arriving from the terraces; gentle processing then avoids pumping, filtration and cultured yeast. Fermentation therefore proceeds without added cultured yeast, while the finished wine is not filtered. For its leading reds, barrel ageing can extend to two years in casks of at least 300 litres, giving oak a structural role without turning the range into a formula of small-barrel flavour.
Wines to know
The range in view
The range begins with Buntsandstein Spätburgunder, the estate-level Pinot Noir named for the red sandstone under the vines. It is the broadest expression of Steintal’s ground and provides the first step into dry red fruit, acidity and tannin without attaching the wine to one named village or vineyard.
Klingenberg Spätburgunder Alte Reben moves to a dry village wine from old vines in Klingenberg. The old-vine designation and oak élevage place more weight on structure: fruit remains central, while tannin and oak give the palate a firmer shape. Above it sits the dry Klingenberg Schlossberg Spätburgunder Grosses Gewächs. Schlossberg names the vineyard; Grosses Gewächs is the VDP category for a dry wine from a top classified site. Its longer barrel ageing and site-specific label place it at the most concentrated end of this three-wine sequence.
A useful way in
A bottle to begin with
Start with the Klingenberg Spätburgunder Alte Reben. It is a dry Pinot Noir from old vines in the village where the estate is based, placing it between the broad Buntsandstein wine and the more demanding Schlossberg GG. Expect fruit carried by acidity, a firmer tannin line and oak-derived shape from élevage. It shows how Steintal turns Klingenberg Spätburgunder into a structured red without requiring a leap straight to the top vineyard category.