HISTORY

The Peter Mertes winery has been run as a family business since its formation in 1924. With more than 300 employees, today we are active worldwide in the wine business from our company headquarters in Bernkastel-Kues.

Peter Mertes is one of the few large scale bottling companies in Germany which carries out its own wine-growing, and this has a positive influence on the quality of our wines as well as the know-how of our employees.

This is how it all began:

In 1924 the winery owner and master winemaker Peter Mertes established his business in a small village called Minheim on the Mosel. His intention was to go beyond the simple wine-growing which can be documented for more than 600 years in the Mertes family. Peter Mertes had a clear goal: he wanted to supply his wine directly to his customers. The basis of this young venture were his extensive vineyards between the well-known wine towns of Bernkastel and Piesport on the Mosel.

In the 1950s his son-in-law Dr. Gustav Willkomm began activities at the renowned wine sites on the Rhine (Nierstein, Oppenheim, Bingen, Mainz) and a little later in the Pfalz.

In the 1960s the range was extended to include wines from the Rheingau and the Nahe. Through these offerings the customers and markets grew, today Peter Mertes wine is found in all parts of Germany and in many foreign markets. In addition to the Mosel vineyards which are constantly expanding, various wine cellars, bottling plants and modern, air-conditioned warehouses were established during the 1970s and 1980s. Today the company includes, for example, the biggest barrique cellar in Germany exclusively for German red wines, as well as prominent wine estates with prime vineyards.

In the early days of industrialisation the pleasure of wine was a privilege of the upper classes. The vision of Peter Mertes was to appeal to a broad section of the population with select, sophisticated wines of the best quality. This still drives us today and is the basis of our company ethos. Recent years have seen a successful expansion in the Eastern European and Asian countries particularly with quality German wines. With several hundred employees in various locations, ænologists, cellarmasters, viticulture specialists, sales and marketing professionals, Peter Mertes offers a wide range for wine lovers at home and abroad. Since 1969 we have operated from our central office in the well-known wine town of Bernkastel-Kues on the Mosel.