What happened in July 2021 in the German states of Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia was an unrepeatable disaster. An unstoppable storm swept everything away. It washed away houses, bridges, farm warehouses and tens of thousands of cars in an undefined mass of mud. 183 people were killed, 90,000 homes and 28,000 businesses were completely destroyed. In a first estimate, the insurance companies have estimated the damages at 8.5 billion euros.

And all this in one of the poorest regions of the old West Germany, which lives on tourism and viticulture. Well-kept vineyards can be found in the Aar region in the Rhineland, south of Bonn. Although not far from the Rhine Valleys with their renowned and award-winning Riesling varieties, the region’s winemakers have dedicated themselves to something all their own, of which they are proud. This is the Spätburgunder variety, which corresponds to the Pinot Noir we know from Alsace, Burgundy or Lombardy. It is an extremely enjoyable, preferably cool red wine, but it needs a special microclimate to give the taste that wine lovers are looking for.

The “wine of the flood”

As soon as they stopped counting their wounds, the winemakers began to think about “the next day”. They didn’t want to give up. They decided to once again do what they know best. To produce wine. And so, the new winemaker Peter Krichel tells us on the sidelines of the ProWein exhibition in Dusseldorf, “Flutwein”, the “wine of the flood”, was born. Here the term “clay flavor” acquires an unusual, perhaps even macabre, dimension. But this time the stake was not enjoyment, it was the struggle for survival.

Despite the disaster, the winemakers did not lose their sense of humor. “We bring you our worst year ever” was their slogan. The people responded, the “wine of the flood” became rapturous. Of course, most people do not intend to drink it, but acquired it as a souvenir or wanting to financially support the wine producers. Who, it should be noted, insist that the “wine of the flood” is drunk with pleasure and is not inferior to other years. Be that as it may, the idea spread by word of mouth, but also through the electronic platform Startnext, which became “the first mass crowdfunding business of our winegrowers”, as Peter Krichel says. By July 29, 2021, over 900,000 euros had been raised for the Aar growers.

But the story doesn’t end here. This was followed by a large wine auction for charity, in which many producers participated with their unique creations. Peter Krichel himself took out “under the hammer” a fine bottle of Spätburgunder from 2012. And there something incredible happened, as he recounts: “An unknown bidder participated and paid 30,000 euros for this particular bottle. It was the first time that a German wine raised such a significant amount at auction.”

When the flood becomes …a work of art

Now the flood is starting to inspire artists as well. Or is it just a fleeting marketing inspiration?The concept is definitely original though. “Museum of Modern Ahrts” is the name of the huge three-dimensional blue cube presented to us by Peter Krichel, where there is a pun on “Art”, the art, and “Ahr”, the name of the area. Objects accidentally washed up by the flood seem to float or swim in a thick blue liquid: a shoe, an old watch, distorted license plates and of course a bottle of Spätburgunder. But this time the bottle does not come from Peter Krichel’s winery. It is an offering from the winemaker Mark Adenoyer from the spa town of Bad Neuenahr.

The cube is financed by private sponsors, who want to keep alive, as they say, the memory of the dramatic events of 2021. But they also want to experiment with the limits of crowdfunding and related inventions. Soon the mysterious cube will produce “digital dividends”, available to interested bidders as NFTs.