Anette Closheim

Fourth generation at the Nahe bench

Sauvignon Blanc sits at the center of Anette Closheim's work as winemaker at Anette Closheim in Langenlonsheim, where the family estate meets her own purist line. The vineyards were familiar ground before they were a career: fresh air, movement, and the freedom of working outside shaped her sense of timing long before cellar decisions became formal ones. After studying wine business management, Closheim worked in product management for premium spirits, marketing single malt whiskies and premium vodkas, then returned to wine with an eye trained on precision, presentation, and the way a bottle begins speaking before the cork moves.

The estate behind her is a small family winery of around 10 hectares, now in the fourth generation, with a 150-year-old half-timbered building holding part of the family memory. Closheim did not erase that inheritance. She set a contemporary register inside it, using her own name for a line that favors clean expression over weight. The result is not a break with the Nahe, but a narrowed point of view within it: Sauvignon Blanc beside Riesling, Pinot Blanc, Scheurebe, Chardonnay, and Spätburgunder, all handled through a language of clarity rather than ornament.

Sustainable fruit on mixed Nahe soils

The work begins in vineyards set on red sandstone, tertiary marl, gravel, and loess-clay, a mix that gives Closheim room to separate texture from aroma and structure from simple ripeness. The estate describes its philosophy as sustainable, and the farming is tied closely to the scale of the place: small enough for decisions to stay near the vines, varied enough for each variety to ask a slightly different question of the cellar. Riesling remains part of the regional grammar, but Closheim's attention to Sauvignon Blanc has become the sharper signature.

Her current range carries that discipline into the bottle names and the finished style. 2025 Rosé 'Jubel & Trubel' dry, Cuvée Blanc 'Here & Now' dry, Calardis Blanc 'Rebolution' dry - PIWI, Pinot Blanc 'With Friends' dry, and Sauvignon Blanc 'savvy' dry all sit in the same visual and sensory frame: concise, modern, and cut for precision. She treats packaging as part of that method. "Elegant, timeless bottles should reflect my high quality standards for the wine," Closheim says, making the label and glass part of the same decision as the blend.

A vinotheque inside old timber

The tasting room is a modern vinotheque built into the old family structure, where contemporary lighting and clean architectural lines meet the half-timbering of the house. It is a quiet room for bar tastings, counter tastings, and small appointments, not a stage set. The conversation stays near the wine. Bottles stand with their labels facing outward, the design doing the same work Closheim asks of the wines: signal without noise, shape without excess.

Outside, Langenlonsheim keeps the cellar close to the vineyards, and the varied Nahe soils are not abstract once the glass is on the counter. The room gives the wines a controlled setting, but the craft still points back to the ground: sandstone, marl, gravel, loess-clay, and the decisions Closheim makes from them.

Recognition without changing the line

Weinwelt named Closheim a Riesling discovery of the year, a useful marker because it sits beside, not over, the broader work. Her Sauvignon Blanc focus has not pushed Riesling out of the cellar; it has made the range read with more tension. For now, the concrete thread to follow is already in release, in 2025 Rosé 'Jubel & Trubel' and the clean-cut bottle language around Sauvignon Blanc 'savvy'.