Location and landscape
Sankt Johann is a municipality in the Mainz-Bingen district in Rhineland-Palatinate and belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde Sprendlingen-Gensingen. The town has about 830 inhabitants; nearly half of the municipal area is planted with vineyards. The Wißberg lies partly within the municipal territory. Sankt Johann belongs to the wine-growing region Rheinhessen.
Viticulture
The sites Geyersberg, Klostergarten and Steinberg belong to the Großlage Abtey in the Bingen area of Rheinhessen. In the region, Riesling, Müller-Thurgau, Grauer Burgunder, Silvaner, Dornfelder and Spätburgunder are among the most important grape varieties.
Soils of the wine sites
At the Sankt Johanner Geyersberg, marl and pelosol soils occur from calcareous clayey deposits of the Tertiary Sea, as well as loess and pararendzina soils from calcareous ice-age windblown dust. The Klostergarten has marl and pararendzina soils from calcareous loams and sands. At the Steinberg, loess and pararendzina as well as marl and pararendzina soils are found.
History
Sankt Johann was established around 600 as the settlement of Weiler Megelsheim near an earlier Roman villa rustica. The settlement later shifted to the pilgrimage church Sankt Johann Baptist, which was built around the middle of the 14th century. Since the 15th century, the place has borne the name of its patron.
Climate in Rheinhessen
For Rheinhessen, an average annual temperature of about 11.1 °C, around 530 millimetres of rainfall, a mean growing season of 280 days and about 1,970 hours of sunshine per year are given. Viticulture is mainly focused on hillside sites; the regional average gradient is about seven per cent, and most vineyards are oriented from south-east to south-west.
