White wine from the beer city of Dortmund has been around for ten years. A new large vineyard on the Emscher is now planned. For the initiators, this is an expression of a successful structural change.
Dortmund/Castrop-Rauxel (dpa/lnw) - The Ruhr area as a wine region: In Castrop-Rauxel on the Emscher, which has long been massively polluted, the municipalities are planning a new large vineyard after the river has been cleaned up. The Emschergenossenschaft announced on Friday that the first vines should be planted this year. A total of up to 9000 vines are planned.
For more than 150 years, the 85-kilometer-long Emscher had to absorb the faeces of a good two million people in the Ruhr area and a lot of industrial waste until it was freed from the dirt load with a huge underground sewage system in the early 1990s. The billion dollar project was completed last year.
A vineyard was planted ten years ago on the Phoenix Lake in Dortmund, on the north bank of which the new Emscher flows. This first Emscher wine, a white wine, has been tasted since 2015; he has developed well, said the head of the Emschergenossenschaft, Uli Paetzel, according to the announcement on Friday.
There has been another vineyard on a renatured stream in Dortmund-Barop since 2018, which citizens tend to together. "If we can grow wine on the banks of a river that had to serve as an industrial cesspool for 170 years, then a lot more is possible here in the Ruhr area," said Paetzel.
The Emschergenossenschaft is a water management company under public law. The new vineyard is to be created as part of a nature and adventure park together with the neighboring towns and the regional association RVR.
