THERE can be few finer places to sample wine than the Johner family’s purpose-built tasting room at Bischoffingen, overlooking the vineyards of the Kaiserstuhl, near Freiburg in the Baden region of southern Germany.

The villages of the Kaiserstuhl enjoy the sunniest and warmest climate in Germany, although on the day I visited, of course, the mercury struggled to reach 12C. Two days earlier, it had been 32C.

Nearly 30 years ago, the normally warm climate persuaded a number of well-known English wine critics, including Hugh Johnson and Jancis Robinson, to urge Karl Heinz Johner to have a go at making deeply-flavoured, Burgundy-like red and white wines, aged in oak, from varieties like Pinot Noir, Pinot Blanc and Pinot Gris.

The young Karl Heinz was keen to return home to Germany after a stint making wine, with great success, at Lamberhurst Vineyards in Kent. His family roots were in Bischoffingen and he and his wife Irene had managed to buy a few hectares of vines there in 1982.

In 1989, they moved back to Germany, gradually built up the estate and pioneered a new style of high-quality, dry, oak-aged German wines, much to the consternation of the authorities who said that such practices were un-German and refused to let Karl Heinz sell them as “Quality Wine”.

But taste and experience are more important than theory. Karl Heinz’s son Patrick has since reduced the amount of oak in some of the wines to emphasise more strongly the wonderful quality of the Kaiserstuhl fruit. Both Karl Heinz and Patrick are driven by a passion to make the best possible wines, and if that means changing the way they do things, then so be it.

Their approach has been influenced in recent years by first-hand experience of also making wine in New Zealand. Just over 10 years ago, they bought their first vineyards in the little-known, but very promising Wairarapa Region, in the south of North Island, and began to produce some exceptionally fine wines, most of which are exported to Germany. They now own 14 hectares of vines in New Zealand, and buy in grapes from other growers, and they have 17.5 hectares in Germany.

Patrick, who has a young family, looks after things in Germany, while his father globe-hops. Karl Heinz was still out in New Zealand supervising the end of the vintage. Irene, who plays a large part in the business, did not go with him this time. “New Zealand is beautiful,” she says, “but home is here.”