An eagle nestled in the finest cotton – Weingut Franz Keller

The grandfathers shared lodgings as apprentices: Franz Anton Keller and Franz Anton Vollherbst. At the “Schwarzer Adler” in Oberbergen, they raised a glass together more than once. From the Baden host family Keller, a successful wine-trading and winemaking family grew over the decades. When young winemaker Friedrich Keller joined in 2015, the agency medienagenten developed the overall strategy for the wine estate and the corporate design for the new labels. It was a return to the old emblem of the inn – the double eagle, printed and embossed to a premium standard on the finest cotton paper. Keller and Vollherbst: two families with a great deal to tell each other, professionally and privately. And that for three generations!

Inhalt

Papier

Fasson Cotton White, 120 g/m2
Veredelung

Three-level relief embossing, hot foil stamping, relief varnish

Brand & personality

From innkeeper to wine merchant and winemaker

A committed family turns a small, romantic winegrowing village into a national destination for pleasure. The “Schwarzer Adler” is an institution and unites French and Baden cuisine. This is where the grandfathers of both companies, Franz Anton Keller and Franz Anton Vollherbst, once sat. They shared a room in the apprentices’ hostel in Freiburg and remained close friends. They always greeted one another with “Franz Anton”, and it was “Proscht Franz Anton” when the two of them together indulged their Kaiserstuhl taste for wine. Opposite the “Schwarzer Adler” restaurant: the 200-year-old winegrower’s house “Rebstock”, serving down-to-earth regional dishes, also in family ownership. “My great-grandfather had already begun, at the start of the 20th century, to trade in cask wine from Baden and Alsace. After the Second World War we imported wines from France. Then we built up a cellar, and my father bought the first vineyards,” says Friedrich Keller. After studying in Geisenheim and time abroad in South Africa and Burgundy, he joined the estate in 2015. As early as 2013 the new winery was built over three storeys into the vineyard slope. An architectural masterpiece that nestles into the landscape. Today the almost 40 hectares of vines – above all dry Burgundy varieties – are vinified at the highest level. The aim: to bring the site characteristics of volcanic or basalt rock precisely into the glass. The Kellers have nine Grosses Gewächs (GG) wines and Erste Lage sites of their own, for example “Bassgeige Oberbergen” or “Schlossberg Achkarren”.

“It is the all-inclusive package. I am very satisfied with the quality.”

Friedrich Keller

Weingut Franz Keller

The challenge

A backward roll – with youthful energy

Friedrich Keller found an old bottle of wine, vintage 1959, in the rarity cellar. “Why did we ever change the label?” he asked his father. The eagle dominated the old label. “In the meantime we had given the labels watercolour-painted orchids. That no longer suited us.” Friedrich Keller wanted to return to the old style, to clarity. “I admire it when businesses never had to change their labels. A true brand! For example, like the house of Gaja. The understated label dates from the 1970s, but it is still incredibly modern today.” The design brief to agency and printer was: “We want a timeless, high-quality label.” Medienagenten took care of strategy and design. Vollherbst took care of the print realisation. The eagle, then, king of the skies. But why is it double-headed and why does it bear a crown, sword and sceptre? “Until 1806, until Napoleon arrived, this region belonged to Further Austria. Everything was under Habsburg rule. The inns were assigned names: ‘Goldener Schwan’ or ‘Zum Bären’. And we were simply ‘Der schwarze Adler’.” The double eagle was the symbol of the Habsburg empire. Only when the Pope recognised the respective ruler as emperor did the single-headed eagle become double-headed. It stood for temporal and spiritual power. To this day, the prominent trademark of the Keller winegrowing family embodies a timelessly perfect visual profile.

Collaboration and family ties

Approach

Finest cotton paper and multi-level sculpted embossing

A former symbol of identification for rulers demands the very best. Armin Kyre explains: “We print the Grosses Gewächs wines on Cotton White, that is on a 100 per cent cotton surface. It is brilliant. It feels as if you are touching wool.” The grammage, that is the weight, of ordinary papers averages 80 g/m2. Like writing paper. “But here we are at 120 g/m2. It is quite firm and voluminous. You cannot go further. This is nature in its purest and most exclusive form.” Both the vintage seal and the back label are made of cotton. Account Manager Armin Kyre emphasises the eagle execution: “This is a multi-level relief embossing. Highly sculptural.” Gold hot foil additionally accents the wings and body of the black eagle; the insignia of rule are entirely in gold. Two banners in a light grey flutter to either side of the eagle. On them the golden inscription: “Schenk noch emol i, s´isch Adlerwirts Wi”. Alemannic dialect for: “Pour another glass, this is the Adlerwirt’s wine.” Here, too, the very best in print. “The transparent relief varnish rises with precision, as in braille.” This gives the banner presence alongside the multi-level eagle and the highly valuable paper. For the expert, a premium triad: the finest paper, the finest relief embossing, the finest varnish.

Personal Touch

Collaboration and family ties: the world is small for the king of the skies

Friedrich Keller: “It’s the complete package. I am very satisfied with the quality. Projects are handled well and quickly. That is important – efficiency. A win-win situation!” Friedrich Keller finds it very agreeable that Vollherbst specialises in the wine industry: “This is not just any service provider. The people at Vollherbst can put themselves in the shoes of their wine-industry customers. They see which sales channels need to be served.” In Keller’s case, the wines go both directly to the end consumer and into gastronomy, specialist retail and export. The eagle – fully dressed in Baden – flies around the world. As does the wine edition “Franz Anton”, in memory of the grandfather. Anibal Strubinger, the chef at the “Schwarzer Adler”, will certainly never forget the two families either. In spring 1974, Dr. Franz-Josef Vollherbst accompanied his father Franz Vollherbst to Tovar in Venezuela and recalls: “We were impressed that the emigrant colony of 1842 still spoke the Kaiserstuhl dialect there, six generations after immigration. Before we left, Anibal’s father asked about an apprenticeship for his son as a cook ‘in Ditschland’.” In September of the same year, six young men from Tovar arrived at the Kaiserstuhl, the home of their ancestors. Franz Anton Vollherbst had found an apprenticeship for each of them. “As for Anibal’s request, it was natural that my father visited the Kellers: “Dü nimmsch aü einer”. …“isch rächt”!