It’s really just a small thing, nothing major: a stamp. A stamp, dear digital natives, “is a confirmation from a postal service provider that the amount printed on it has been paid” (according to Wikipedia). They’re still around, even though fewer and fewer people use letters (or postcards) to communicate: 9.4 billion were sent in 2025 (20 years ago, the figure was still around 16 billion letters), most of which were advertising—and those certainly don’t have a stamp on them, but rather a “data-processing postage mark.” The things you see… So when a stamp was unveiled at Wackerbarth Castle by Barbara Klepsch, Saxony’s State Minister for Culture and Tourism, it was truly something special. Regular readers may have guessed it, since it’s been written about before: the Wackerbarths are celebrating an anniversary! Not quite a round number, but close enough: 190 years of sparkling wine tradition in Saxony. The stamp is a limited edition; in honor of the founding year, there are 1,836 copies, with a face value of 95 cents—enough for a postcard or a standard letter.
And this comes exactly 190 years after three visionary winemakers in Radebeul founded an “Actienverein zur Fabrikation moussierender Weine” (Joint-Stock Association for the Production of Sparkling Wines) in 1836, thereby laying the foundation not only for Saxony’s first sparkling wine winery, but also for one of Europe’s oldest sparkling wine producers—albeit with a little help from Champagne: the first cellar master, Johann Joseph Mouzon, came from Reims. He taught the Saxons the art of riddling, as it is traditionally done by hand on riddling tables. In keeping with this tradition, Minister Barbara Klepsch has also checked off another part of her job-related training to become a well-informed minister: following the Traminer harvest last November, she recently received instruction in the art of riddling from bottling master Thomas Milster. The standard training covers more nuances and lasts four years—the minister gave it a try (still very cautiously) after just four minutes. But she took a liking to it and shook her way through the entire rack, from the comfortable top to the decidedly less comfortable bottom.
