Kessler Kellerführungen

Useful Information

Location:	Georg-Christian-von-Kessler-Platz 12-16, 73728 Esslingen am Neckar. (48.742116, 9.306990)
Open:	Dates in the online booking system. Post-pandemic Aftermath [2022]
Fee:	Adults EUR 17. [2022]
Classification:	Cellar
Light:	Incandescent Electric Light System
Dimension:
Guided tours:	D=90 min.
Photography:	allowed
Accessibility:	no
Bibliography:
Address:	KESSLER Sekt GmbH & Co. KG, Georg-Christian-von-Kessler-Platz 12-16, 73728 Esslingen am Neckar, Tel: +49-711-310593-10. E-mail:
As far as we know this information was accurate when it was published (see years in brackets), but may have changed since then. Please check rates and details directly with the companies in question if you need more recent info.

History

1807	Georg Christian von Kessler becomes clerk of the famous company Veuve Cliquot-Fourneaux & Cie.
1815	Kessler promoted to be a member of the company's executive board.
01-JUL-1826	Kessler returns from the Champagne to found the first Sekt cellar of Germany in Esslingen on the Neckar river.
1832	Kessler buys the first vaulted cellar in the Speyrer Pfleghof.
1842	Kessler dies.

Description

Georg Christian von Kessler worked from 1807 in the Veuve Cliquot-Fourneaux & Cie. in Reims in the Champagne. He learned the production of Champagne and became a member of the company's executive board. He plans to take over the whole business as its chef in 1824, but intrigues prevented this. As he had actually no future in France, he returned to his hometown Esslingen to open a sparkling wine company. The G.C. Kessler & Compagnie he founded in the old wine press house of the Kaisheimer Pfleghof successfully produced 4000 bottles of sparkling wine from the local Frühburgunder (Pinot Noir Précoce). It was an immediate success, only ten years later he sold about half a million bottles of sparkling wine, 50,000 per year. An enormous number for the 19th century. He sold to the royal court of Württemberg and exported to Russia, Great Britain and to the United States. He purchased the nearby Kaisheimer Pfleghof which had a vaulted cellar, and the building with its impressive façade from 1213 remains the company's headquarters until today.

The success continued with his successors, and throughout the 20th century. Kessler Sekt was served famous airship „LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin“, and was appointed as the official sparkling wine of the Federal Government of Germany by then chancellor Konrad Adenauer. But finally the company had to file for bankruptcy in December 2004 and was saved from closing by massive restructuring. But it is still there and again successful.

Like other wine producers the company offers cellar tours with wine tasting at their headquarter at the Kessler Karrée 18 in the middle of Esslingen. First the historic cellar is visited, then the tasting area and finally the shop.