There are many ways by which names came to be: one Chablis Grand Cru vineyard got its name from the abundance of frogs living nearby (les Grenouilles), whilst another in Hochheim was to commemorate the love of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert for their wines (Königin-Victoria-Berg). This vineyard in the Mittelmosel village of Trittenheim was so named because it used to belong to an apothecary. The vineyards of this part of the Mosel are very steep with a typical gradient of around 45 degree and originally the boundaries of the Apotheke vineyard are within these slopes, but later expansion brought in flatter and inferior land and the quality is not as exciting as before.
I remember meeting the owner of this winery many years ago when Gerhard Grans came to Hong Kong with Fritz Hasselbach of Gunderloch. He told me quite a lot about his various vineyard holdings in and around Trittenheim. I had just been reading a book about the German wine laws, I talked with the German vignerons about vineyards and ripeness classifications and greatly enjoyed that evening.
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