RELEASE 2022 BERG SCHLOSSBERG – ARTIST LABEL MARTIJN VAN BERKUM

We are delighted to announce that Dutch artist Martijn van Berkum (born 1976) is the designer behind the artist’s label of our 2022 Berg Schlossberg.

Martijn van Berkum studied at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam and at the Valand Academy in Gothenburg, Sweden. He has participated in various collaborative art projects and lives with his family in Rotterdam. Van Berkum’s primary artistic medium is drawing. In his work, he deals with a wide variety of architectural structures, which he translates into his own visual language after a thorough analysis. The resulting interpretations show an architecture devoid of all functions – van Berkum develops spaces and material arrangements that make reference, then, allegedly, exist only for their own purpose and, as it were, highly auratically in the paper space. The artist is interested in the creative and subversive potential of these functionally empty architectural structures.
For the design of the artist’s label for the 2022 Berg Schlossberg, Martijn van Berkum partially suspends the principle of “non-functional structures” that characterizes his work: in wine production everything is connected for him. In the lower and upper areas of van Berkum’s partially colored drawing, there is a system of roots and branches representing the natural factors of climate and soil conditions. In the middle of the picture, the colors flowing from below and above mix: “[…] the cellar work focuses on understanding the different vineyards and parcels and how they can be vinified and blended to form an expression of terroir. As such, the drawing represents the tension that is typical for Breuer’s wines: on the one hand the result of the whimsical character of nature and vintage, on the other hand the product of a man-made, precise articulation of place.” (Martijn van Berkum, February 2024).

Undisputedly, the Berg Schlossberg is Rüdesheim’s top vineyard. With up to 65% steep terraces, these vineyards require a lot of craftsmanship in cultivation. Only the very best lots of the harvest are bottled under the site designation “Berg Schlossberg”.

Ratings: Vinum Weinguide Deutschland 2024: 93 points; Eichelmann 2024 – Deutschlands Weine: 93 points

“Firm and deep, herbaceous and tobacco, a hint of smoky nose with yellow-fruity, nutty and delicately floral aromas, a trace of dried mushrooms, mussel shells, delicate barrel tones and minerality. Cool, very tightly knit, finely juicy and yet completely dry fruit, very fine, lively acidity and some grip, nutty barrel tones, dried vegetal to herbaceous notes, dense and persistent on the palate, good depth, lots of stony minerality, almost compact structure, yet also has something light-footed, very good to long, extremely firm finish with noble juice, fine spice and again plenty of minerality. – 96 out of 100 WP” – Weinplus 2024