Location and landscape
Pfedelbach is a municipality in the Hohenlohe district in Baden-Württemberg, about two kilometres south of Öhringen. It stretches along the Ohrn valley from the Hohenlohe Plain in a south-easterly direction into the heights of the Swabian-Franconian Forest and thus lies at the transition between the plain and Keuper landscapes.
The municipal area ranges from 229 metres above sea level on the Ohrn at Tannhof to 478.7 metres at the Kanzleibrückle near Schuppach. The temperate Central European climate is influenced by the sea and conveys a balance between the milder Neckar basin, the cooler Hohenlohe Plain and the higher forest landscapes.
Viticulture in Pfedelbach
Of the 4.129 hectares of municipal area, 166 hectares are accounted for by vineyard land. Fertile loess clay soils over shell limestone and Letten coal provide the basis for wine and fruit growing. The Heuholz winegrowing area is particularly known for the vineyard site Dachsteiger.
In the Dachsteiger area, the Heuholz wine education trail is located, which provides information on work in the vineyard and locally cultivated grape varieties. For the site, among other things Riesling, Lemberger and Weißburgunder are documented; from this, for example, dry Riesling, dry Lemberger matured in barriques and a dry Weißburgunder Auslese are produced.
Geological setting
Pfedelbach lies on the southern edge of a shell limestone plateau. Within the municipal area, among other things Letten coal, loess clay, gypsum Keuper, reed sandstone, variegated marl, siliceous sand and Stubensandstone occur. The higher Keuper layers receive annually up to about 1,000 millimetres or more of precipitation; as average annual values, 8.7 degrees Celsius and around 734 millimetres of precipitation are given.
History
Pfedelbach was first mentioned in 1037 in the Öhringen foundation document as Phadelbach; the settlement origin is dated to the ninth or tenth century. In the Langen Bau built in 1604 there was a 70-metre-long and twelve-metre-wide stately wine cellar that could hold several hundred thousand litres of wine.
The Upper Germanic-Rhaetian Limes crosses the municipal area. The Roman boundary was established here around 155 AD and has belonged to UNESCO World Heritage since 2005.
