About us:
Weinhaus Hartl (Ursula and Erich Hartl) is a family-owned business situated in
Tübingen, a small, picturesque and
famous university town in the southern
part of Germany.
My wife Ursula and I, Erich Hartl, didn't
exactly reinvent the wheel, but in 1983 we
did establish Germany's first company, the
Weinhaus Hartl, which imports and sells
wines produced using ecological methods.
I grew up on a typical Bavarian combination
of a farm and a hotel, served an apprenticeship
in the catering and food services industry, following which I worked for several years in the international upscale restaurant and catering business. After I had spent some time working in a managerial
position for several large catering companies which supplied up to 20,000 meals daily, we became
aware of the negative effects of industrial agriculture, the need to constantly produce more, faster and cheaper, using artificial fertilizers, chemical pesticides and herbicides on the fields and concentrated
feed, hormones and antibiotics in the barns.
Subsequent experiments regarding taste and productivity
proved that organic food was much superior to the conventional products.
It was possible to transfer these findings to viniculture
without any restrictions. Due to our increasing environ-
mental awareness and our professional and private
interest in wine, which had been growing for some time,
we decided to start importing and selling organic wines
as self-employed persons, a job which to us made more sense than what we had been doing.
It was with this intention that we began our many travels
in 1980, our trips into the blue so to speak, first of all to France and Italy, in order to find vintners who grew wine
using ecological methods. At that time there no
directories and scarcely any fairs where it would have
been possible to find "organic wines." We were
dependent on more or less reliable recommendations.
Hardly anyone was familiar with terms such as "organic
wine," "wine produced using biological or ecological
methods." These terms were also not provided for or
allowed in wine law. In any case, a great many people Ursula Hartl at work
mistrusted them. Anyone who got involved in this field Wine tasting in Barberino Val d'Elsa, Tuscany
was polically left-wing, an oddball or a dreamer. In order
to comply with the legal stipulations and at the same time to call attention to our wines, we called them "wines made in the old way," since ecological viniculture is not new and thus can be seen as conservative in the way it dispenses with the "modern" achievements of chemistry. Today we know that the chemicals used in conventional viniculture are poisonous, to some extent carcinogenic or are suspected of causing cancer.
The reservations about "organic wines" were so great that the samples we sent to a test of organic wines carried out by the Meininger Verlag, a publishing company for books on wine, received a damning report: "You can't even let these wines cross your lips, let alone swallow them." And this was said about wines which had been given more than 85 points (out of 100) by Robert Parker and other internationally recognized experts. Our work was obstructed by officials as well. The customs offices refused and delayed customs clearance at the borders. Our wines were not allowed to cross the border before samples of them had been taken and were never allowed to be sold before the analyses were finished many weeks after this. There were never any objections to the contents, but the letters on the labels were either too big or too small by a couple of millimeters. The names of the winegrowing associations, such as "Nature et Progres," had to be blackened. These obstructions did not stop until a lawsuit against us was discontinued with our agreement.
These experiences turned out be useful for us. On the one hand we were forced to study the wine law in detail, and on the other hand we learned how "independent" journalism works.
Somewhat later the EU rules on organic farming defined the terms and prerequisites for ecological products. This directive did make it easier to import and sell organic products and wines, but the new market for these was not at all stable. Our small company grew very quickly, as did the market for organic products. We sold mainly to health food stores (at that time there were no other customers for organic wines) and to so-called organic regional distribution companies throughout Germany. However, when these companies began to suffer economic problems and to declare bankruptcy (from 1989 on), we had to cope with a considerable number of payment shortfalls for several years. As a result of this, we stopped supplying to the retail trade (small profit margin, large risks) almost completely. In order to compensate for this, we organized a cooperation with Greenpeace, which lasted for many years (many Greenpeace members will remember this), and many of their members still buy their organic wines from us. At the same time we opened a second store in Karlsruhe (no longer in existence) and intensified the shipment of our organic wines to private customers.
It was never our intention to become Germany's largest wine dealer or to amass a huge fortune. This is why we never even considered selling so-called producer-bottled wine or store brands, although the profit margins for these are considerably higher than they are for estate-bottled wines, which means the wine was completely produced, age and bottled at the winery. Bottling cheap wine of inferior quality in returnable bottles in order to increase our share of the market did not fit in with our concept, which is based on quality and sustainability. We would not feel right about buying organic wines from a hard-working vintner at a price much below the cost price, which is often done. Apart from this, it is a fact that vintners normally bottle, label and sell their best wines under their own name. In addition,
every transfer-pumping and the resulting oxygen contact has a negative effect on the quality of the wine, since it then has to be filtered, fined and sulfurized once again.
On the other hand, "inexpensive" organic wines are produced which do in fact have an organic certification but do not deserve it. Anyone who has ever worked in agriculture or viniculture will agree that it is impossible for a vintner to sell a wine which has really been produced using ecological methods for less than € 0.40 per liter (bulk wine) or € 1.00 per bottle but then to have these in supermarkets or even in organic markets for prices between € 2.49 and € 4.00. In this context an old saying occurs to me, which goes something like this: "There is no pillow so soft as a clear conscience."
The fact that we import our European organic wines ourselves and not through other channels means that we are constantly in touch with our organic winegrowers, all of whom we know personally, and we are also familiar with their vineyards, their strengths and their weaknesses. We visit them regularly and speak their language. In this way we have been able to learn a great deal during the time we have been working as organic wine merchants, which means that we receive first-hand information which we can pass on to our customers.
All this experience has made it easier for us to choose
our wines with care. It is my wife's exceptionally well-trained
sense of smell which is often the crucial factor in deciding
whether or not to purchase a wine. Due to this special
aility, which is a good supplement to the wine analyses we
are given, we are often able to avoid purchasing flawed wines.
We do not however go to such lengths that we would abandon
a vintner if he has had a bad year due to unfavorable weather.
If we were to do so, we would be forcing him to manipulate
the somewhat weaker or lower-alcohol wines, and this would
no longer be a naturally produced wine.
If our approach to wine appeals to you, we would be happy to receive your order and we promise that we will be a reliable
partner and supplier of good organic wine.
Yours,
Erich Hartl
Ursula Hartl
serving wine at a winetasting-event