Bianka und Daniel Schmitt

Rheinhessen, Germany

Bianka and Daniel Schmitt are two talented young winemakers whose story is one of love. They met in 2012 while Bianka was working as a cellar hand in Daniel’s family winery which has been under their care for over 230 years. Rheinhessen is closely associated with an ocean of low-quality wines bearing the infamous name of Liebfraumilch. In recent years, however, the region's reputation has begun to change as a new generation of younger, more innovative winemakers are reducing yields and refining the largely undervalued terroir of this region. Bianka and Daniel are the epitome of this new wave of German winemakers who are working hard to produce wines of the highest quality with as little intervention as possible. The ecological winery Schmitt has been in family ownership for over 200 years. Bianka and Daniel have been cultivating their 16 hectares biodynamically for over a decade and are Demeter-certified as one of only 80 producers in Germany. They work with both amphorae and used oak barrels and produce wines mostly with no or minimal addition of sulfur. DB Schmitt's wines are pure and fresh, full of personality and life.