Henkell & Co. Sektkellerei KG (externally known as Henkell Freixenet) is a German company for sparkling wine, wine and spirits based in Wiesbaden. It is active in 30 countries with its own production and sales locations and sells its brands in more than 150 countries worldwide.
From 1958 to October 2021 it belonged to Dr. August Oetker KG. Since November 2021 it has been a company of Geschwister Oetker Beteiligungen KG with a turnover of almost 2 billion euros and more than 8,000 employees.
In 1832, Adam Henkell founded the Henkell & Cie wine shop in Mainz. 25 years later, he had a "champagne factory" built on Walpodenstrasse in Mainz, making him one of the first in Germany to master the technology of making sparkling wine from wine. Under the leadership of Otto Henkell, the Henkell Trocken brand was created in 1894 and officially protected in 1898 as one of the first brands in Germany. In 1909, Henkell & Co. moved into the new winery building in Biebrich (now a district of Wiesbaden). From 1900 to 1920, the Henkell Trocken brand was heavily advertised. Large-format advertisements appeared regularly, for example in Jugend or Simplicissimus. Artists such as Thomas Theodor Heine, Ernst Oppler, Lucian Bernhard, Gino von Finetti and Adolf Münzer were commissioned to design the advertisements. The neoclassical winery building was also the subject of several full-page advertisements in Lucian Bernhard's typical design style.
Otto Henkell and Ludwig Stollwerck are considered the inventors of joint advertising, which they used from around 1900. This was the first time that marketing measures were jointly developed and financed by companies in one industry.
Joachim von Ribbentrop married into the Henkell family on July 5, 1920, when he married Otto Henkell's daughter Annelies. Otto Henkell entrusted Ribbentrop with the establishment and management of the Berlin branch of Henkell & Co.[4]
The current headquarters of Henkell & Co. Sektkellerei KG was built between 1907 and 1909 by the architect Paul Bonatz.
In 1935, Henkell & Co. developed the piccolo and registered this trademark. From 1936, the "Black Man" in the style of a paper cut-out was the identifying mark of Henkell Trocken for many years.
Translated by Google •
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