C& EN TA L KS W ITH
BERNHARD WOLFF The CHIEF SOMMELIER of BASF’s expansive wine cellar has a mandate to spread enjoyment MICHAEL MCCOY, C&EN NORTHEAST NEWS BUREAU
It employs about 20 people, including company, BASF does things big. The firm’s four trained as sommeliers, four as enolheadquarters site in Ludwigshafen, Germaogy engineers, three as enology managers, ny, is home to the world’s biggest chemical and four as winemakers. To keep the celcomplex. BASF boasts the industry’s largest lar stocked, the staff tastes roughly 5,000 staff of research scientists. wines a year. “The secret to the success of Less well-known is that Ludwigshafen the BASF wine cellar is our competitive is also home to the chemical industry’s selection process,” Wolff says. “We taste largest wine cellar. Americans might be every bottle of wine every year. You can surprised to learn that a company would trust BASF on its selection.” Sometimes keep a wine cellar at all. But cellars are not the cellar will buy the entire output of a parunheard of at firms in European countries ticularly good vintage—mostly local Riesthat have a heritage of winemaking and an lings—and make it a BASF exclusive. acceptance, at least in the past, of the intermingling of work and drink. WOLFF SAYS HE SPENDS most of his time The chief sommelier, or kellermeister, helping colleagues choose from the cellar’s at the 1 million-bottle BASF wine cellar is 2,000 different wines to enjoy at company an ebullient, bowtie-sporting 48-year-old events both local and afar. But the most visnamed Bernhard Wolff. With the help of ible part of his job is the tastings, which he Katja Schweder, a former German Wine andSchwederconductalmosteveryevening. Queen who now works for BASF, he hosts Many events are in BASF’s tasting room, some 450 wine-tasting events per year for which is equipped to display Google Earth BASF staff, customers, and local groups. images of the vineyards that yielded the Wolff grew up in the Palatinate, a grape-growing region near the Kellermeister Wolff wines being enjoyed by guests. Some afdescribes wines BASF facility, and as a child worked in the vineyards during vacafairs are much bigger. In January 2011 at at the American tions, especially the two-week harvest holiday in the fall. As a high the American Cleaning Institute’s annual Cleaning Institute school student, Wolff visited the Ludwigshafen site on a tour with conference in Florida, for example, BASF conference in his chemistry class, but otherwise he gave little mind to the compahosted a lavish party at which it celebrated January. ny. “I never thought I would become part of BASF one day,” he says. the acquisition of Cognis, a provider of inAfter college, where he earned a degree in economics, Wolff gredients for home and personal care prodbecame a sales manager for a winery in the region. In that job he ucts. Standing on a stage, Wolff presented cuvées, or blends, that learned that, in addition to being a chemical company, BASF is one surpassed the individual wines from which they were made. At the of Germany’s top 10 wine merchants, with a reputation for stocksame event a year later, Wolff and Schweder offered a cuvée creing quality wines. In 1999, when a job at BASF presented itself, ated by members of BASF’s newly “blended” care chemicals team. Wolff happily came aboard. Wolff always tries to pick wines that are relevant to his guests. He was joining a wine business that dates back to 1901, when For customers in the coatings industry, for instance, the color of BASF opened its Gesellschaft, or guest house. As Wolff tells C&EN, the wine is important. Wolff enjoys hosting perfumers, because the firm was expanding at the time, and its potential workers in of their sensitive noses and expressive descriptions. “They don’t the region often grew their own grapes and made their own wine. speak the everyday language of our colleagues in the wine busi“BASF wanted to make sure that employees were always in reach ness,” he says. “It’s never just honey to them but wildflower honey of good wine,” he says, adding quickly that “nowadays, of course, from Corsica. It’s not mango but Indian mango. It is a lot of fun for wine and working are clearly separated!” me to hear how they approach wine.” BASF’s other motive for starting the cellar, to make sure the And he also likes anniversary celebrations at which guests are company had the best wines to offer guests, is now the served wines bottled the same year as the event being cellar’s main reason for being. The cellar has about remembered. According to Wolff, 1865 is both the year 25,000 customers, Wolff estimates, more than half of “BASF wanted of BASF’s founding and the second-best year in the whom come from outside the Ludwigshafen area. It to make sure 19th century for German wines. Nestled deep in the also operates two stores in the town itself. Ludwigshafen cellar are 11 bottles of an 1865 vintage. The wine cellar is a tiny part of BASF—contribut- that employees Surprisingly, they are white wines, which aren’t known ing a mere 0.01% of the firm’s $100 billion in sales were always for aging well. “My big hope,” Wolff says, “is the next in reach of last year—but it does turn a profit. “Our aim is to event where a bottle will be opened is our 150-year angood wine.” not cost money to our colleagues,” Wolff says. niversary in 2015.” ◾ BASF
AS THE WORLD’S LARGEST chemical
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