Three brothers from Müllheim, some 40 km south of here, set up vineyards on this site in the years 1842 – 1844. Their names were Nikolaus, Adolph Friedrich and Jakob Wilhelm Blankenhorn. Adolph Friedrich had a son, also named Adolph, who undertook research in viticulture and viniculture, based in the family estates. Adolph in due course received a doctorate and was appointed a professor for his research. Following the First World War, the estate was used as a model farm by the Baden state agriculture ministry; and after 1933 it was nationalized as part of the imperial nutritional board. After the Second World War, the estate became the property of the newly established state of Baden-Württemberg, with the twin missions of conducting research and training for the state wine research institute in Freiburg. 

Baden-Württemberg’s ministry for agriculture and consumer protection is based in Stuttgart. It controls the state wine research institutes, and through the Freiburg institute also has responsibility for the state vineyard. This mix of traditional heritage through the family estate, and a modern requirement to conduct state-sponsored research is a blend specific to the Freiburg state vineyard. We manage some 37 hectares, two thirds here in Ihringen and one third in Freiburg itself along with the neighbouring village of Ebringen. 

The Freiburg state vineyard combines applied science, outstanding terroirs and growth conditions, with decades of personal experience, to achieve a unique level of drinking pleasure for its customers. Our principal duty is the management of vineyards for research and early-stage commercial exploitation. We are also required to contribute a surplus towards covering research costs as well as financing a lot of the research institute’s professional training programmes (at any given time, some two dozen trainee growers and cellar staff, those destined for commercial-sector work as well as those at early stages of an academic career).