Location and wine landscape
Kaub lies on the right bank of the Rhine in the Rhein-Lahn district of Rhineland-Palatinate and belongs to the Middle Rhine. The town is part of the UNESCO cultural landscape of the Upper Middle Rhine Valley, shaped by a deeply incised river course, historic settlements, castles and wine-terrace slopes.
Terroir and viticulture
The vineyards around Kaub are on slopes that are in places oriented towards the south, with a gradient of up to around 70 per cent. The Rhine has a balancing effect on the climate, while slate-bearing soils and the clayey slate deposits of the Kaub formation store warmth. The legally recorded vineyard sites, within the Middle Rhine growing region, belong to the Loreley area and the larger Herrenberg site. These include, among others, Backofen, Blüchertal and Burg Gutenfels.
History and cultivation
Kaub was first mentioned in a document on 14 June 983 under the name Cuba. Viticulture in the Kaub district has been documented since the 12th century; the Kaub wine market book records wine trading and production from 1544 to 1676. The vineyard area covered about 233 hectares in 1926 and around 71 hectares in 1971.
Traditionally, the vineyards were divided into small terraces supported by dry-stone walls. Today, in the steep-slope vineyards, among other things, rope winches, crawler tractors, planting machines, grape wagons and tractors are used. A land consolidation project in Kaub-Gutenfels from 2005 to 2012 was intended to reactivate steep-slope viticulture; in 2008 new vines were planted on the slope of Burg-Gutenfels.
Grape varieties and wines
In the Kaub family vineyards, according to a local account from 2019, about 60 per cent were Riesling and 30 per cent were Spätburgunder. The remaining areas were planted, among others, with Sauvignon Blanc, Ruländer and Müller-Thurgau. Quality wines and Prädikatsweine are produced, including Rieslings up to Beerenauslese.
