1892 - Ausoniuskeller - Sankt Aldegund, Germany - Dated Buildings and Cornerstones on Waymarking.com

"In the burgher house in Sankt Aldegund is a large vaulted cellar, built at the end of the 19th century.

Genesis:
The wine merchant Peter Josef Drathen from Breyell near Düsseldorf, born in 1835, came regularly to Sankt Aldegund as a young man to buy wine. There he met the young Margarethe Andries, who came from a respected Sankt Aldegund winegrowing family. In 1860, Peter Josef and Margarethe married, founded the wine trading company Peter Josef Drathen and built a very large cross-vaulted cellar on a plot of land of just under 1,000 square meters, bordering the federal road on the Moselle side and Brunnenstraße on the north. On top of the vaulted cellar, which was huge by the standards of the time, they built a representative three-story residential house with outbuildings such as a wine press house, packing hall, fermentation cellar and equipment hall for the vineyard tools.

Change of ownership:
The business developed so well that the sons Hans and Josef of Peter Josef Drathen, who had already died in 1880, looked for expansion possibilities. Subsequently, the Drathen family left Sankt Aldegund for Alf in order to take possession of the much larger and more modern residential building on the banks of the Moselle. Since then, the "old" cellar in Sankt Aldegund was mainly reserved for the development and care of the wines from their own vineyard, which had grown in size. At the end of the 1980s, the Drathen company offered the property with cellar and house to the municipality of Sankt Aldegund for sale. The municipal council with the then mayor Horst Scheid did not miss this opportunity to acquire a representative cellar in the middle of the village.

Naming:
Of course, the cellar should also have a name that serves its purpose. There was the poet Decimus Magnus Ausonius, born in Bordeaux in 310 A.D., who, during a journey from Trier along the Moselle in 371 A.D., wrote his famous work "Mosella", in which he praised the landscape and wine of the Moselle in 483 hexameters, the classical verse measure of the ancient epic. The name of this poet, who made the theme of "wine" the subject of his verses, would henceforth be associated with the Kreuzkeller in Sankt Aldegund.

Today's use:
During the renovation of the aging cellar building, the cellar floor rising from Moselstraße was made lower and level and equipped with modern supply lines for water and electricity and heating, as well as with a toilet facility. The aim of the municipality was to create a representative and original space for the presentation of the Sankt Aldegund wines. Today, the usable area of the vaulted cellar with all adjoining rooms is over 800 square meters.
The old residential building with the farm buildings was demolished and the Sankt Aldegunder Bürgerhaus was built on this area above the vaulted cellar."
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Year of construction: 1892 Full inscription: Ewald Theod. Drathen 1892 Ausoniuskeller Cross-listed waymark: Not listed

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