A new subject “Short excursions” has been announced at the University of Geisenheim and we, exchange students from Georgia, got interested. We attended the introduction  lecture by Dr. Sophie Ghvanidze and our attention was very easily taken by what we saw and that was a great opportunity to go and visit a couple of wineries, see how they function, what they are focused on, what are their main goals, what and how they produce and so on. Our positive attitude was an immediate and we wanted to take the course even much time before the lecture ended.

A couple of weeks after we went to the excursion and all this period we waited with a great anticipation. When we got to the bus, it was almost full with the international students. We could observe a great excitement, just as we had. The bus left at 8 o’clock and the plan was to visit three wineries. All three of them were very different from each other: one was focused on very massive production, another one on importing the bulk wine and bottling them. The third one was small winery which was producing the very small amount, very high-quality organic wine, using terroir at its best. We did not have expectations about what we were going to see, but when we heard that we were going to visit three completely different types of wine companies, our excitement got higher.

So the first one we got to visit was “Reh Kenderman”, as expected from the information we were given, the company was orientated on mass production and quantity. After the presentations of marketing managers, we tasted wines that are produced by these companies. We tried to make a correlation between the price and the quality of the wine, the tasting was a good practice for our sensory skills. We realized how big influence has a good marketing and close communication with customers.

There was the second company WIV that as we already mentioned works with bulk wines from all over the world. First difference that we easily saw was company’s disposal. It was totally adapted for transferring wine from big tracks straight to reservoirs. Here was another difference; company used carbon fiber tanks for some wines. It seemed for us that this company had more chaotic working atmosphere then other ones. They had to change labels and bottles for each wine again and again, setting machines differently and so on. While other companies had certain amount of products to be bottled that makes work more defined.

The small family winery Pieroth was orientated on making high quality wines and on high prices comparing to others. The headmaster of company explained why she couldn’t make wine for 2 euros. As she said she believes in terroir and the differences it makes to wine. She doesn’t want to make wine without soul or character and her preference is making good wine for those who can appreciate and see the difference.

To sum up all about mentioned the module “Short excursion’’ gives us a chance to see how various wine business is and how companies differ from each other.

Find out more about our degree program International Wine Business!