Ruppertsberg is a small village immediately south-east of Deidesheim, at the heart of the Pfalz wine region in Germany. For its size (the population is around 1500), the village produces a remarkable proportion of Pfalz's very finest wines. These are almost all made from Riesling, in a style markedly richer and riper than that found almost anywhere else in Germany. In warmer years, tasting notes for these wines refer to sweet-spiced apples, baked pears and even pineapple, while those for drier wines from cooler vintages hint at preserved lemon, green apple and chalky minerality.
The reason that Ruppertsberger Riesling is so noticeably fuller-bodied than that from other German regions (e.g. Mosel) is Pfalz's relatively dry, warm climate. This is caused by the low-lying Haardt Mountains, which run along the region's western edge, forming a natural barrier against cold winds and rain blowing in from the west. The same effect is experienced in neighboring Alsace, where the vineyards shelter in the rain shadow cast by the Vosges Mountains (the Haardt range's southern counterpart).
Because of the success the village's winegrowers have had growing Riesling in their terroir, the vineyards here are planted with very little else. There are a handful of successful Ruppertsberger Gewurztraminer and Scheurebe wines, but these are very much in the minority.
The village is thought to have grown up around the Hoheburg castle (whose name lives on as that of one of the village's top vineyard sites), which dated back to around 800 A.D. The fortress was destroyed in the 14th Century and eventually replaced with a moated castle, in the village’s north-eastern corner. This is immortalized in the village's coat of arms, which shows a fortified tower over a bunch of grapes. The town's key landmark is not the castle, however, but the Teehaus ('tea house') located at the west of the village, on the corner of the Gaisböhl vineyard, an eight-acre (3ha) Grosse Lage site owned by Dr Burklin-Wolf.
In addition to Gaisbohl, Ruppertsberg has two well-regarded vineyard sites, the Reiterpfad and Speiss, both located to the west of the village immediately next to the south-western corner of Deidesheim. The Reiterpfad has soils made up of sands, clay and limestone formed from marine fossils deposited here hundreds of thousands of years ago. Speiss is effectively a five-acre (2ha) sub-division of Reiterpfaad that has a certain quantity of sandstone in its soils, which is said to bring a subtle sweet-spice aroma to its Rieslings.
Each year, on the last weekend of August, Ruppertsberg hosts the Ruppertsberger Weinkerwe wine fair. Many thousands of tourists flock to the area, which already has a thriving tourism industry throughout the summer months. Although impressively popular, the fair is dwarfed by the Durkheimer Wurstmarkt that takes place each September in nearby Bad Durkheim.
