Deidesheim

About

Deidesheim (German pronunciation: [ˈdaɪdəsˌhaɪm] ; Palatine German: Daisem) is a town in the Bad Dürkheim district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany with some 3,700 inhabitants. The town lies in the northwest of the Rhine-Neckar urban agglomeration and since 1973 it has been the seat of the Verbandsgemeinde of Deidesheim. The most important industries are tourism and winegrowing. Deidesheim's two biggest folk festivals revolve around wine: the Geißbockversteigerung (literally “Billygoat Auction”) and the Deidesheimer Weinkerwe (wine fair).

Deidesheim lies in the Palatinate in the Weinstraße region (as distinct from the Deutsche Weinstraße – or German Wine Route – itself). Deidesheim's municipal area stretches for 26.53 square kilometres (10.24 sq mi), covering parts of three morphological and ecological units, namely the Palatinate Forest, the Weinstraße region's uplands and the Upper Rhine Plain : 23.9% of this area is used for agriculture, mainly grape-growing for wine, 67.9% of it is wooded, 0.6% is water, 7.4% is residential or transport-related and 0.1% of the land fits under none of these headings. The town itself lies some 1 000 m east of the Haardt. Deidesheim is found in the northwest of the Rhine-Neckar urban region in the middle of the Palatinate wine region. Running through the town is the German Wine Route.

Clockwise from the north, these are Forst an der Weinstraße, Friedelsheim, Rödersheim-Gronau, Niederkirchen bei Deidesheim, Meckenheim, Ruppertsberg, Neustadt an der Weinstraße, Lindenberg, Lambrecht, Frankeneck, Neidenfels and Wachenheim an der Weinstraße.

Macroclimatically, Deidesheim is characterized by the surrounding relief: The Palatinate Forest to the west forces the main, rain-bearing winds from the west and southwest upwards, whereupon they cool and their water condenses, raining down on the Palatinate Forest. The now drier air then falls at the forest's east side warming back up, making for a drier, less cloudy climate with warmer temperatures to the forest's lee. The number of summery days (that is, with temperatures reaching or surpassing 25 °C) far exceeds the countrywide average by 40 or 50 each year, and the yearly precipitation level of just over 500 mm (20 in) is below the threshold, set at 600 mm (24 in), for German regions that are considered dry.

From a local climatic point of view, Deidesheim is part of the climatically favoured foothill zone of the Weinstraße region. With a mean elevation of 235 m above sea level at the forest's edge, the lands of the Deidesheim area reach down to some 130 m above sea level at the lower mid-slope area in the foothill zone. The outliers of the Madental and the Sensental, as well as those of the Einsteltal (dales) northwest of Deidesheim, form outflow pathways for the cold winds coming from the Haardt. Also affecting the local climate are small hollows and dells in which cold air can gather.

Climatic conditions in Deidesheim have almost Mediterranean traits as witnessed by ripening figs, almonds and bitter oranges in the area. Profiting especially from the favourable climate are warmth-loving crops such as grapes. This favours the growing of Qualitätsweine, which is done here on a grand scale. With its long growing season, the wine can age fully. Thoroughly fermented wines have a high quality, and frost damage is rare.

The most important event in the Deidesheim area's, and indeed the whole eastern Palatinate's, geological development was the rifting and downfaulting relative to the Haardt of the Upper Rhine Plain, whose onset was some 65,000,000 years ago in the Lower Tertiary and which has lasted until today. The area before the Haardt range was over time scored by brooks that rise in the Palatinate Forest. During the ice ages, there were gradual solifluction on the slopes and also wind abrasion. These processes led to a transformation of the original surface relief in whose wake an alluvial fan with embanked or eroded terraces formed. In colder, drier phases of the Würm glaciation, loess beds came into being through the influence of the wind, whereby the loess gathered mostly at faults and alee of small hollows.

West and northwest of Deidesheim, the Voltziensandstein that predominates in the middle of the Palatinate Forest from the Triassic represents the oldest stratigraphic unit within Deidesheim's limits, the so-called “Rehberg Layer”. In Deidesheim's southwest, Pleistocene deposits can be found; these came into being some 1,500,000 years ago. In the north, Deidesheim is girded by a band of Pliocene deposits that formed some 3,000,000 years ago. In Deidesheim's east are found the newest stratigraphic units in the Holocene deposits. With foreign material such as basalt, bricks and dung, man has altered the natural soil composition. The most important soil types in the Deidesheim area are various rigosols, rendzina, parabraunerde and limestone-bearing terra fusca.

Deidesheim lies in the Palatinate in the Weinstraße region (as distinct from the Deutsche Weinstraße – or German Wine Route – itself). Deidesheim's municipal area stretches for 26.53 square kilometres (10.24 sq mi), covering parts of three morphological and ecological units, namely the Palatinate Forest, the Weinstraße region's uplands and the Upper Rhine Plain : 23.9% of this area is used for agriculture, mainly grape-growing for wine, 67.9% of it is wooded, 0.6% is water, 7.4% is residential or transport-related and 0.1% of the land fits under none of these headings. The town itself lies some 1 000 m east of the Haardt. Deidesheim is found in the northwest of the Rhine-Neckar urban region in the middle of the Palatinate wine region. Running through the town is the German Wine Route.

Clockwise from the north, these are Forst an der Weinstraße, Friedelsheim, Rödersheim-Gronau, Niederkirchen bei Deidesheim, Meckenheim, Ruppertsberg, Neustadt an der Weinstraße, Lindenberg, Lambrecht, Frankeneck, Neidenfels and Wachenheim an der Weinstraße.

Macroclimatically, Deidesheim is characterized by the surrounding relief: The Palatinate Forest to the west forces the main, rain-bearing winds from the west and southwest upwards, whereupon they cool and their water condenses, raining down on the Palatinate Forest. The now drier air then falls at the forest's east side warming back up, making for a drier, less cloudy climate with warmer temperatures to the forest's lee. The number of summery days (that is, with temperatures reaching or surpassing 25 °C) far exceeds the countrywide average by 40 or 50 each year, and the yearly precipitation level of just over 500 mm (20 in) is below the threshold, set at 600 mm (24 in), for German regions that are considered dry.

From a local climatic point of view, Deidesheim is part of the climatically favoured foothill zone of the Weinstraße region. With a mean elevation of 235 m above sea level at the forest's edge, the lands of the Deidesheim area reach down to some 130 m above sea level at the lower mid-slope area in the foothill zone. The outliers of the Madental and the Sensental, as well as those of the Einsteltal (dales) northwest of Deidesheim, form outflow pathways for the cold winds coming from the Haardt. Also affecting the local climate are small hollows and dells in which cold air can gather.

Climatic conditions in Deidesheim have almost Mediterranean traits as witnessed by ripening figs, almonds and bitter oranges in the area. Profiting especially from the favourable climate are warmth-loving crops such as grapes. This favours the growing of Qualitätsweine, which is done here on a grand scale. With its long growing season, the wine can age fully. Thoroughly fermented wines have a high quality, and frost damage is rare.

The most important event in the Deidesheim area's, and indeed the whole eastern Palatinate's, geological development was the rifting and downfaulting relative to the Haardt of the Upper Rhine Plain, whose onset was some 65,000,000 years ago in the Lower Tertiary and which has lasted until today. The area before the Haardt range was over time scored by brooks that rise in the Palatinate Forest. During the ice ages, there were gradual solifluction on the slopes and also wind abrasion. These processes led to a transformation of the original surface relief in whose wake an alluvial fan with embanked or eroded terraces formed. In colder, drier phases of the Würm glaciation, loess beds came into being through the influence of the wind, whereby the loess gathered mostly at faults and alee of small hollows.

West and northwest of Deidesheim, the Voltziensandstein that predominates in the middle of the Palatinate Forest from the Triassic represents the oldest stratigraphic unit within Deidesheim's limits, the so-called “Rehberg Layer”. In Deidesheim's southwest, Pleistocene deposits can be found; these came into being some 1,500,000 years ago. In the north, Deidesheim is girded by a band of Pliocene deposits that formed some 3,000,000 years ago. In Deidesheim's east are found the newest stratigraphic units in the Holocene deposits. With foreign material such as basalt, bricks and dung, man has altered the natural soil composition. The most important soil types in the Deidesheim area are various rigosols, rendzina, parabraunerde and limestone-bearing terra fusca.

The name Deidesheim had its first documentary mention in 699, although the town now standing in its current location only arose, it is believed, in the 13th century around the former Deidesheim Castle. From 770 onwards, there is proof of winegrowing here. In the early 19th century, Deidesheim was the first place in the Palatinate whose wineries were growing Qualitätsweine. Today, Deidesheim is one of the Palatinate wine region's biggest winegrowing centres.

The first time when the placename was mentioned in 699 was in a document in which the Lotharingian nobleman Erimbert bequeathed estates under his ownership to Weißenburg Monastery in Alsace (in the now French town called Wissembourg ). Further mentions came in documents from Fulda Abbey (770 or 771) and Lorsch Abbey (791), in the latter of which Deidesheim is already named as being a winegrowing centre. Documentary mentions from the Early and High Middle Ages, however, deal with various settled places that lay not in the town's current place, but rather elsewhere within a greater municipal area around Deidesheim. Frankish burial grounds in and around the neighbouring municipality Niederkirchen bei Deidesheim lead to the conclusion that there were individual settlements at least as long ago as the 6th century, some of which were forsaken. The first documentary mention is believed to refer to neighbouring Niederkirchen. When today's Deidesheim arose as a settlement next to Niederkirchen is not known with any certainty; the two centres only became separate from each other when the Prince-Bishop's castle, Schloss Deidesheim, was built, and for this the first evidence dates from 1292. The first confirmed distinction between Niederdeidesheim – today's Niederkirchen – and Oberdeidesheim – today's Deidesheim – only came in the 13th century.

In the Early Middle Ages, Deidesheim was mainly under the aforesaid Erimbert's and his descendants’ ownership. Among them were a few Counts of Metz, Upper Lotharingian dukes and Salians, and they had holdings in Deidesheim for almost 400 years, until Henry IV (1056) and Margravine Matilda of Tuscany (1086) gave up their Deidesheim holdings and donated them to the Cathedral Chapter or Saint Guy's Monastery in Speyer. Not long thereafter, Deidesheim passed into the Speyer Prince-Bishops’ hands and thenceforth belonged to the Prince-Bishopric of Speyer. Other, but less important, holdings in Deidesheim in the Early Middle Ages were owned by Lorsch Abbey and the Bishopric of Worms.

As the Speyer Bishopric's records confirm, Deidesheim quickly grew into an economically important centre to which contributed financially strong Jews, who had their own community with a synagogue in Deidesheim until the pogroms during the time of the plague about 1349.

Along with this development arose the townsmen's wish to offer the flourishing community greater protection against attacks, which was granted at last by Bishop of Speyer Gerhard von Ehrenberg in 1360 when he granted Deidesheim fortification rights. On Saint Valentine's Day 1395, the Bohemian King Wenceslaus (Wenzel in German, Václav in Czech ) granted Deidesheim town rights. These were given – as was then customary – not to the town itself, but to the Bishop of Speyer, since he was the town's lord.