About Weingut Fritz Waßmer

Weingut Fritz Waßmer (Wassmer) is located in Baden, Germany, and has over 40 hectares of vineyards in the cool shadow of the Black Forest, mostly in Breisgau, north of Freiburg. The Wassmer family has its roots in agriculture, but annual visits to Burgundy over the years led Fritz to the conviction that world-class dry wines could also be made in Baden. Fritz founded his winery in 1998, swiftly acquiring some of the best parcels of vines in the country, establishing a reputation for high quality with his clear, balanced style of dry wines.
The focus of the winery is the Pinot family, particularly Pinot Noir. There are three ranges of wines made: the Estate Wines, vinified in steel tanks, with a focus on fruit, freshness and varietal typicity; the Réserve wines, come from some of the estate’s best vineyards and have lower yields, strict selection, and are fermented and aged in barrels; and the Cru wines, made in very small quantities from the estate’s best and most expressive parcels of vines. In all three ranges there is minimal intervention and everything, including the harvest, is done by hand.
Fritz’s inspiration was and remains the wines of Burgundy. The wines he strives to make have clear fruit, freshness, elegance, and expression. Ageing potential is supported by a careful use of wood. The winery uses only Burgundian barriques with a moderate toasting, made by coopers in Burgundy. The goal is clear: to make the best Pinots and Chardonnays in the country.

Representative Biography

Kevin Gagnon, Tasting Director

There are many paths to wine, Kevin Gagnon started his as a Classical Singer. A Canadian himself, Kevin was born and raised near Edmonton, Alberta, and studied Philosophy and Music at the University of Alberta. A grant to attend the prestigious Mozarteum in Salzburg brought him to Europe; he started his career in Germany after completing studies in Austria.
It was in Germany while pursuing an active singing career that he truly fell in love with wine. He began visiting vineyards and reading everything he could find about wine while on concert tours. Passion led to education, and in 2015 Kevin began studies for the WSET Diploma at the Weinakademie in Rust, Austria, completing it in 2016, shortly before receiving the title of “Weinakademiker”. A career in journalism followed thereafter, specialising in indigenous grapes and lesser-known regions of Europe. In 2017 he became a VIA Italian Wine Ambassador and more of his time was spent giving seminars and presentations on wine business and overlooked grapes and wine regions.
When the pandemic arrived, international travel was stopped. So, Kevin (finally) began exploring more of what was in his back yard. Living in Freiburg, this meant Baden. He was so smitten with the quality of the wines being produced – many from relatively unknown producers – that he decided to try to promote the quality of German wines outside of the country. For this he needed a relatively unknown producer with top quality across the entire portfolio, which led him to Weingut Fritz Wassmer.
Why does Kevin love cool climate chardonnay? Because of the range of expression, the sheer diversity, and the potential for greatness that can be achieved – and because it is delicious!

Why We're Cool

Cool Climate Chardonnay is a passion and a gift of vineyard site, but it is also philosophy and careful winemaking. We approach all our wines with the same vision and rigor as we approach our chardonnay. At Weingut Fritz Wassmer, we harvest the grapes once they have achieved peak phenolic ripeness, while maintaining freshness and moderate alcohol levels. Overripe fruit or wines with high alcohol or residual sugar are not what we are trying to achieve.
We have several parcels of very fine Chardonnay vines found spread out between Staufen, to the south of Freiburg, and Herbolzheim and Kenzingen, to the north. The vines are planted exclusively on calcareous soils, and there is also a fair bit of limestone present in the vineyards for both of the chardonnays presented here. Our southernmost vineyards can be found at 47° latitude, while the northernmost are at just over 48° latitude. The chardonnay vineyards can be found approximately 220-300 meters above sea level.
Summers in Baden are sunny and warm for Germany. Our vineyards benefit from the strong winds coming from across the Rhine plain, which help to keep the berries dry and healthy. The cold air emerging from the nearby Black Forest contributes to the significant difference in temperature between day and night, which encourages finesse and complexity in the grapes.
The vines themselves come from massal selections of French clones with particularly small berries and low yields – and we only take the healthiest berries. Everything is harvested by hand.
Our estate has three truly exceptional vineyard sites from which we get our Crus: Kaiserberg Herbolzheim, Roter Berg Kenzingen, and Schlossberg Staufen. We are proud to have brought our Schlossberg Staufen Chardonnay 2020 to Canada.
In addition to the limestone and calcareous soils, Schlossberg Staufen is strongly influenced by the sandstone of the vineyards. The site is composed of small, narrow terraces; some of the vines are individually trained on single posts and can only be reached by foot. All the vineyard work must be done by hand. Thanks to the terraces and the reflective properties of the sandstone, the grapes profit from a long, fine ripening period, resulting in superb quality.
All of our chardonnays are fermented and aged in barriques, spending a total of 11 months in wood before the wine is transferred into steel tanks for another year before bottling. For the Réserve Chardonnay we used 55% new wood, for our Schlossberg Staufen Cru 70% of the barrels were new. Filtration and fining are not practiced.