This is where Shakespeare dances in summer, where Grandfather Jean lends his character traits to the wine bottles, where a male Miss Marple sneaks through the wine landscape. Books and stories have their home right next to the wine bottles in the sales room, and the courtyard is transformed into a stage in summer. "My parents started the theater 25 years ago," says Andreas Wagner, "which was really unusual at the time."

Wagner's farm festival has since become an institution, and loyal guests even travel from northern Germany especially for it – and not just for that: cabaret and culture, history, crime novels, and the special children's vineyard are among the attractions at the Wagner winery in Essenheim. For all this, they won the 2018 Best of Wine Tourism Award in the "Art and Culture" category."

"I've always loved writing," says Andreas Wagner, "I realized that during my studies in academic writing." Andreas, the eldest of three sons of the winery, left the farm to study history, politics, and Czech in East Germany. When he returned nine years later, he brought not only a wife and children, but also a fresh perspective from outside. "We were newcomers," says Andreas. That was true even for him, and even more so for his wife Nina, a journalist born in Dortmund.

During one of the first quiet winters, Andreas began writing, just for fun, as he says: a crime novel about a grumpy district police officer who is involuntarily transferred from the big city of Dortmund to the social abyss of rural village life—and right into the middle of all kinds of abysses, murders, and a lively wine scene. His detective Paul Kendzierski has now had his eighth adventure, and his creator Andreas Wagner has not only sold 150,000 books, but is also touring the country with around 90 readings. The crime novelist winemaker and his detective have become famous.

This is by no means the only creative cross-connection in this family: Ulrich, the middle of the three brothers, first trained as an industrial clerk, while the youngest brother, Christian, studied mineralogy. His wife Chrissy studied biology and worked in cancer research; today, she runs the children's vineyard together with her sister-in-law Nina, a journalist. The young participants experience an entire season in the vineyard up close, including caring for their sponsored grapevine.

"We work really well as an extended family," says Nina with a laugh: "Someone always has a new idea – and the enormous variety would never work without all our skills."

This diversity is evident in the cabaret evening as well as the six-course culinary wine menu, all cooked by the family themselves. It is the puppet theater and the wine debate, the herb walk and the champagne seminar. There will be a classical concert this summer as well as a jazz brunch, and of course Wagner's courtyard festival will take place in June. Shakespeare's "Hamlet" is on the program this year.

Two historical portraits on the wall of the old barn catch the eye: Jean Wagner was Andreas' great-grandfather, and his portrait as a hunter with a shotgun gives the Wagner red wine labels their distinctive look. There are 15 different types of wine on the wine list, with Pinot Gris playing the most important role, followed by Riesling and Pinot Noir. Fresh, highly mineral wines with rich fruit grow on the limestone-rich slopes of the Selz Valley just beyond the city limits of the Great Wine Capital Mainz. Even Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Shiraz ripen here into round red wines.

Jeans' great-grandmother Elisabeth lends her face to the light white wines. "We are also a winery with many faces," says Andreas, "this is not a one-man show." And when evening falls, guests gather at the long tables of the wine bar and listen to the stories of Paul Kendzierski or his counterpart, an eccentric old winemaker who sneaks through the Rhine-Hessian wine scene in Miss Marple style and has to face many an old wine scandal...