In its relatively short history, the Uni Cellar at Hochschule Geisenheim University has already been host to an amazing number of interesting events and guests. Michael Jung’s Limburger Kreis and his guests were treated to a cosy evening with Germany’s three-Michelin-star culinary legend Harald Wohlfarth during the summer. This time a 1990 world soccer champion arrived to enjoy an evening of Tuscan specialities and excellent sea fish. Thomas Berthold and his wife have been close friends of Luigi Brunetti, the one-time proprietor of the “Alter Haferkasten” in Neu-Isenburg, for many years. Brunetti has cooked for such stars as Chris de Burgh, Tina Turner, Bruce Springsteen and the bands Pink Floyd and Supertramp.
"It is a great pleasure to have the opportunity to welcome my friend Luigi, who is also president of "11 del Vino", the Italian national football team of winemakers, to Geisenheim Uni Cellar to serve his wines and food to our special guests. He brought fresh white truffles from Alba in Piedmont as well as a 2018 Riesling from Cecina in Tuscany. Stuart Pigott himself, who was at the ProWein Media Summit in the Uni Cellar the very next day, was also interested in this wine,” said Robert Lönarz, who has been instrumental in establishing the Cellar in the University’s Müller-Thurgau building.
Luigi Brunetti’s roots lie in a southern Italian village, where he was born in 1949. Leaving home at the age of 14, he trained to cook in Rome before relocating to Germany in 1967, where cooks were sought after. He first ran a restaurant in the Nordwestzentrum in Frankfurt before being invited to take over “Der Alte Hafenkasten”. Brunetti has been a guest in the Rheingau before, namely of Pascal Sohns at Sohns Winery in Geisenheim, which stocks the first-class olive oil produced by Luigi’s own Agrihotel Elisabetta mill.
Jörg Boberg, one of three managing directors at Westcoast Seafood, based in Kiedrich in the Rheingau region, specializes in the global trade of fresh fish and processed fish products. The company’s team of proven experts, with many years of professional experience in the various product groups and countries of origin, guarantees a consistent and reliable balance of price and quality, as well as prompt delivery.
Its main products include fresh tuna and swordfish from the Indian Ocean, exotic fish and crustaceans, salmon from Ireland, Scotland and Norway, smoked salmon products ranging from buffet-standard to premium items, goods transported by air from Iceland, as well as a complete range of consumer and premium fish for the wholesale and retail markets.
Jörg Boberg, who met Luigi Brunetti at the 2016 Winzer-Euro winemakers’ soccer championship in the Rheingau, came up with the idea for the gourmet evening to showcase high quality products to guests from the fields of academia, business, politics and trade associations. Together with Brunetti, he prepared sea bass in sea salt crust, scallops and tuna fish steaks. A white truffle risotto, various salads and desserts rounded off the evening’s culinary delights.
Like the Viticulture and Enology, International Wine Business, Beverage Technology, Horticulture, Landscape Architecture, Food Safety and Food Chain Management degree programs, there are no limits to the ideas for many more exciting events at the Uni Cellar.
