Komtureistube (Commandery Room)

On December 6, 1954, twenty-six men joined together in Neustadt an der Weinstraße to form an unusual community: the Wine Brotherhood of the Palatinate. They saw themselves not as an ordinary association, but as an order modeled after the medieval knightly orders. The board is called the Order Chapter, presided over by the Order Master, and the regional branches bear the proud name of Commanderies – named after the administrative centers of the Templars and Hospitallers, who once covered all of Europe with a network of order castles.

The Wine Brotherhood emerged from two predecessors: the Landsknechte of the Wine Road, founded in 1939, and the Press Stammtisch of 1950. The initiator of both organizations was Daniel Meininger, founder of the Neustadt printing house that still publishes the renowned wine trade magazine today. The Brotherhood sees itself as the “wine conscience of the Palatinate” and is dedicated to the preservation, promotion, and enhancement of wine culture – in word, writing, and deed, as the Order Rule states.

Today, the Wine Brotherhood counts around 1,100 members and is thus the oldest modern wine brotherhood in Germany. Its headquarters, the Order House at the historic market square of Neustadt, houses a wine library and art collection. The annual Great Palatinate Wine Tasting in the Neustadt Saalbau attracts over a thousand guests and has long become an institution.

Ten years after the founding of the wine tavern in the Munich Residence, the Grand Commandery Munich was established here in 1960 – the first and to this day most significant branch of the Wine Brotherhood outside the Palatinate. The name was deliberately chosen: just as the commanderies of the knightly orders carried the order’s ideals to distant regions in the Middle Ages, the Munich Grand Commandery was to keep Palatinate wine culture alive in the Bavarian capital.

Twice a year, in spring and autumn, the Commandery gathers for its convents in this room. The term also comes from the knightly order tradition: a convent was the assembly of order brothers where important decisions were made and community life was cultivated. At the Munich convents, wine tastings, lectures, and the cultivation of Palatinate-Bavarian friendship are the focus.
The vault paintings of this room recall its special function as a meeting place of the Brotherhood. Here, medieval order tradition merges with living wine culture – a place where the cultural treasure of wine is not only enjoyed but also understood and passed on. The Grand Commandery Munich thus stands in a line with the later-founded commanderies in Nuremberg and Berlin, yet as the oldest branch, it remains particularly closely connected to the Wine Brotherhood.