The Hoflößnitz is the municipal winery in Radebeul (district Oberlößnitz) on the Saxon Wine Route.
In the electoral and royal Saxon period, the estate was a country seat of the Saxon line of the Wettins for almost 500 years and the center of courtly Saxon vineyard ownership. Today it has been developed into the Saxon Winegrowing Museum Hoflößnitz with a sales outlet and its own wine dispensing. The winery belongs to the Lößnitz large vineyard site, single site Goldener Wagen.
The Hoflößnitz with Mountain and Pleasure House, press house, cavalier house and wine press is listed as a heritage ensemble (Ensembleschutz) under heritage protection.Entry in the Saxony monument database for monument ID 08950283 with further information (PDF, including map excerpt) – Hoflößnitz (property complex); Hoflößnitz Castle; Hoflößnitz Winery Museum Foundation. Retrieved on April 18, 2021. In addition, the open and green space around the Hoflößnitz is considered a work of landscape and garden design within the heritage protection area Historic Vineyard Landscape Radebeul.Volker Helas (ed.): Stadt Radebeul. Hrsg.: Landesamt für Denkmalpflege Sachsen, Große Kreisstadt Radebeul (= Denkmaltopographie Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Denkmale in Sachsen). Sax-Verlag, Beucha 2007, ISBN 978-3-86729-004-3, pp. 173–176 along with the enclosed map. The Hoflößnitz also includes the vintner's house located below and to the right of the ascent or the gate system with attached bakehouse as well as the former wood yard to the left toward the property, also with a vintner's house.Entry in the Saxony monument database for monument ID 09305654 (PDF, including map excerpt) – Hoflößnitz (property complex). Retrieved on April 18, 2021.
The main house of the winery complex is described in detail in Berg- und Lusthaus Hoflößnitz. The 80 bird oil paintings from the Dutch painter Albert Eckhout on the ceiling of the banquet hall there are listed in the List of Bird Paintings by Albert Eckhout in the Hoflößnitz.
The Hoflößnitz is a “unique testimony to viticulture in the Elbe Valley and courtly culture and lifestyle in Saxony, especially in the 17th and 18th centuries, [the] pleasure house with remarkable furnishings, especially the Baroque paintings, [the] complex overall of incomparable urban, art-historical, cultural-historical and landscape-designing effect”.
Definition The information presented here portrays the Hoflößnitz in three ways: as a historic site, as a modern municipal institution, and as a Saxon cultural monument.
Even though during the Historicism period the romantic designation Schloss became established, the Hoflößnitz was in the true sense a, albeit electoral or royal, winery. The Mountain and Pleasure House, thus the vineyard palace, was less a country seat as a permanent residence of a noble estate owner than rather a pleasure house for the Elector when he celebrated his wine festivals at the Hoflößnitz or stopped there on the way to the hunt. The historicistically named cavalier house was as mountain administrator house the actual administrative center of the daily work of one of the two mountain administrators responsible for all Saxon viticulture, under whom a mountain bailiff as well as chief vintners and vintners with all their assistants were subordinate. The mountain bailiff lived in the wood yard below.
Naming
The name, probably derived from the Old Sorbian lěsnica (forest stream), referred to the 6.7 kilometer long Lößnitzbach directly west of the later Hoflößnitz. This flows through the gorge now called Lößnitzgrund, which separated the vineyard area mentioned in 1271 as Kötzschbergisches Weingebirge north of the Anger of Kötzschenbroda in the west from the vineyards of the villages Serkowitz and Alt-Radebeul to the east. In 1286, a fief document of the Meissen Bishop for the Dresden Maternihospital first mentioned the Weinberg Lezenitzberg belonging to Kötzschenbroda.
In the First Electoral Saxon Land Survey, the surveyor Matthias Oeder designated the vineyards around the Lezenitzberg in 1607
.Matthias Oeder: Die erste Landesvermessung des Kurstaates Sachsen Auf Befehl Des Kurfürsten Christian I. ausgeführt von Matthias Oeder (1586–1607). Zum 800Jährigen Regierungs-Jubiläum Des Hauses Wettin. Plate 9. Stengel & Markert, Dresden 1889. (Online-Version). The designation later applied to the entire vineyard area, within which the electoral Hoflößnitz lay above Serkowitz, which Christian Gerber mentioned in 1717:
Hoflößnitz as historic site With the acquisition of three vineyard parts and a wine press in 1401, the ruling Wettins founded there the center of courtly Saxon viticulture. Vintners with their assistants and their families lived on the vineyards belonging to the estate. The electoral winery did not belong to the commune on whose land it lay, but was directly subordinate to the Amt Dresden., accessed December 30, 2012. The Hoflößnitz was parished to the Kirche zu Kötzschenbroda, the oldest parish in the area. When Elector Johann Georg I. stayed at the Hoflößnitz, the Kötzschenbroda pastor Augustin Prescher was responsible for him.Johann Georg Theodor Grässe: Der Sagenschatz des Königreichs Sachsen. Volume 1, Dresden 1874, pp. 76–77. Accessed December 30, 2012. In the state lexicon of 1817, Hoflößnitz is listed as its own place with 131 inhabitants., accessed December 30, 2012 In 1836, two years after the conversion of the royal winery into a state domain, when the school district Niederlößnitz-Lindenau was created for the Niederlößnitz Vineyard Association, five children from Hoflößnitz were enrolled in the newly built elementary school in Niederlößnitz. Although the surrounding Oberlößnitz had already been founded as a commune in 1839, it took until 1875 for the Hoflößnitz to become part of this rural commune., accessed December 30, 2012.
Hoflößnitz as current municipal institution The current municipal institution is carried by the Stiftung Weingutmuseum Hoflössnitz, in which, in addition to the city as the main founder, the Förderverein Kulturlandschaft Hoflößnitz founded in 1992 is a civic co-founder. The foundation worked in 2011 with five permanent employees.Stadtverwaltung Radebeul: Stadtkämmerei: Beteiligungsbericht der Großen Kreisstadt Radebeul: Geschäftsjahr 2011. (PDF; 2.7 MB) As of: December 2012, accessed February 5, 2013, pp. 83–88. In addition to the foundation, a GmbH pursues the commercial interests of the Hoflößnitz. This Weingut und Weinstube Hoflößnitz Betriebsgesellschaft mbH had 7.5 employees in 2011 according to the participation report.Stadtverwaltung Radebeul: Stadtkämmerei: Beteiligungsbericht der Großen Kreisstadt Radebeul: Geschäftsjahr 2011. (PDF; 2.7 MB) As of: December 2012, accessed February 5, 2013, pp. 60–68.
In public perception, the Hoflößnitz consists especially of the two institutions Weingut Hoflößnitz and Sächsisches Weinbaumuseum Hoflößnitz. In addition, there is the wine terrace and a guest house.
The property of the current Hoflößnitz mainly comprises the building ensemble with its historic furnishings as well as the Schlossberg located southeast. In addition, there are further leased vineyard areas.
In cooperation with the Radebeul registry office, weddings are also held in the banquet hall of the Hoflößnitz.
Hoflößnitz as Saxon cultural monument The heritage Sachgesamtheit of the Hoflößnitz extends far beyond the boundaries of the municipal winery: The vineyard landscape of the Hoflößnitz as a heritage-protected work of landscape and garden design also includes several steep-slope vineyards in the north, of which, for example, the northwest Goldener Wagen as a state vineyard belongs to Schloss Wackerbarth. The Spitzhaustreppe leads through the northern steep slopes, connecting the historic outbuilding high on the slope edge, the Spitzhaus, with the estate courtyard. Southwest and below the actual Hoflößnitz, connected with another staircase, stand a vintner's house with bakehouse and the former wood yard.
History of the winery
Founding date The founding of the Hoflößnitz has been dated to May 8, 1401 since 1904, after an article by the archivist and historian Hans Beschorner in the Dresdner Geschichtsblätter,Hans Beschorner: Die Hoflößnitz bei Dresden. In: Dresdner Geschichtsblätter. 13, 1904, pp. 9–226, pp. 239–247, here: p. 209 f.
Beschorner referred to the original document No. 5170 in the Saxon Main State Archive and claimed: According to this purchase contract between Margrave Wilhelm and Friedemann Küchenmeister, the margrave acquired during the Dohna Feud from their vassals, the Küch(en)meisters, bypassing the feudal lordship, the press house with three surrounding vineyards for a purchase sum of 1660 shock Meißner Groschen (corresponding to 4980 Rhenish guilders).In: H. A. Mascher: Die Grundsteuer-Regelung in Preußen auf Grund der Gesetze vom 21. Mai 1861. Döring, 1862. Online version
Beschorner's chain of argument that the Küchenmeisters were fief holders of the Burgraves of Dohna and that these had overlordship over some vineyards in the cadastral area of Kötzschenbroda was rejected by the historian Mike Huth in 2001 in 600 Jahre Hoflößnitz.Mike Huth: Die historische Quellenüberlieferung zum Weingut Hoflößnitz. In: Heinrich Magirius (Ed.): Sandstein Verlag, Dresden 2001, ISBN 3-930382-60-1, pp. 17–19. The document No. 635 from around 1373 from the document book of the Meissen Diocese cited by Beschorner for his conclusion does prove the fief bearing of the Dohna under the Bishop of Meissen. However, the 1401 document does not prove the overlordship over the vineyards in question, which were listed as accessories.
Rather, according to the 1401 document, Margrave Wilhelm bought from Friedemann Küchenmeister for a purchase sum of 1660 shock Meißner Groschen “the village Kötzschenbroda with fields, meadows, services, duties, vineyards, spiritual and secular fiefs and all its accessories in field and village,” which thus later belonged to the Amt Dresden. Furthermore, Huth doubts that the three vineyards of the later Hoflößnitz mentioned could have been part of this purchase contract, as these lay east of the Lößnitzbach on Serkowitz cadastral land, while the 1401 purchase contract refers to Kötzschenbroda cadastral land on the west side of the Lößnitzbach. Also the Lezenitzberg mentioned in connection with the ownership of the later Haus Reinhardtsberg as the namesake of the Lößnitz lies in the western part of the Lößnitz on former Kötzschenbroda cadastral land, today Niederlößnitz.
The feudal lordship of the Meissen Margrave on the west side of the Lößnitzgrund, thus the so-called Kötzschbergisches Weingebirge, is documented in 1409.
Beschorner claims that in 1401 the three “press parts” with the wine press were already present, which Huth disputes due to the lack of sources from that time. According to him, “three press parts” of the Hoflößnitz are first mentioned in a report from 1548, namely the “Upper, Middle and Lower Lesenitz” as well as additionally the “Sandleitte in the Lesenitz”, which later was part of Neufriedstein, thus lay in Niederlößnitz, former Kötzschenbroda cadastral land. In contrast, the “Kurberge der Ober, Mittel und Nieder Leßnitz” belonged to the Serkowitz cadastral land.
Huth draws the conclusion that the date of May 8, 1401 does mean the beginning of Wettin ownership of vineyards in one of the Lößnitzortschaften, but it cannot be documented that this also includes the press house with the three nearby vineyards of the later Hoflößnitz.
Wettin court winery