About Our Wine
Unsere Weine
Frankenwein Depot offers a selection of quality Franken wine hand-picked for us by Hermann-Josef Bender. With the Hermann Bender Selection you can discover exceptionally well-balanced, fine-tasting wines that reveal the full potential of the Franken region.
Hermann-Josef Bender is personally invested in the future of Franken wine, and regularly provides advice on cultivation techniques, varietal selection, etc. to wine-makers who seek his help. He is passionate about helping more people discover the joys of Franken wine, and loves nothing more than to bring gems from small-scale wine-makers with outstanding vineyards into the hands of the consumer. The wines in the Hermann Bender Selection are just such hidden gems that are often obscured by the production of the more famous and commercially successful vineyards.
The Hermann Bender Brand
Hermann-Josef Bender produces his own unique brand of wine from grapes grown to his specifications and purchased from carefully selected vineyards. Taking into consideration the soil, local conditions, and the meso-climate, he chooses a grape variety suited to the particular vineyard and provides detailed direction on cultivation. The labels of the wine produced in this way bear the motif of Hermann-Josef Bender’s own face as his trademark. This is the mark of Hermann-Josef Bender's confidence in his own wines. We hope that you will enjoy them as much as we do.
Wine Seals and Stoppers
For the most part the wines in the Hermann Bender Selection are sealed with screw caps or glass stoppers rather than traditional corks.
You might have heard the claim that cork is the best choice because it lets the wine breathe inside the bottle. This argument is illogical, however: if wine were allowed to “breathe” inside the bottle, this would lead to oxidation and would damage the wine. If the cork is not absolutely air-tight, in fact, you may find when you finally open that special wine you’ve been looking forward to that what you actually have is a bottle of vinegar. Screw caps and glass stoppers ensure a hermetic seal on the bottle to prevent such oxidation. They also make it easier to reseal the wine after opening: resealed in this way and kept refrigerated, the wine will generally keep for up to a week without any loss of flavor.
There are other reasons too that wine-makers worldwide are electing more and more to use screw caps and glass stoppers: to avoid the risk of the wine becoming “corked,” when flavor from the cork taints the flavor of the wine; and because the price of cork has risen as production has fallen.
While alternative stoppers once seemed to be the sign of an inferior wine, this is clearly no longer the case. Screw caps and glass stoppers have real advantages for the wine-maker and the customer.
The Bocksbeutel
For many people, Franken wine is synonymous with the squat, round Bocksbeutel, and indeed many of the large commercial wineries continue to use this style of bottle, no doubt because of its “advertising appeal.” These days the shape of the bottle says nothing about the quality of the wine, however, and you will find that the majority of wines in the Hermann Bender Selection are bottled in the more standard Bordeaux or Burgundy-style bottles instead.
There are cost considerations at play in the choice of bottle. The Bocksbeutel bottle itself is more expensive than the more common cylindrical bottle types such as Bordeaux bottles. The shape of the Bocksbeutel also leads to a not-inconsiderable incidence of breakage during bottling. This results in losses during production, and can significantly raise costs for small-scale wine-makers. It is for these reasons that Hermann-Josef Bender prefers in general to use cylindrical bottles in place of the Bocksbeutel: to enable him continue to offer good quality wines from small producers at a reasonable price.
When the choice is to use Bocksbeutel, Hermann-Josef’s preference is for high-quality German-made bottles which have a lower risk of breakage during bottling.
Wine Selection (online shop)
