The idea of Grape of the Art was born during a blind tasting of our Rum & Whisky group in Stuttgart, in which we were just stunned by the outstanding quality and variety of Armagnac.
Since we love high quality spirits at cask strength, we dived deeply into the microcosm of brandy, where we had to find out that there were only few bottlings on the German market that fit to our expectations:
Unaltered and undiluted single casks.
Our curiosity and research finally led us to the region of Armagnac & Cognac, where we were blessed to meet wonderful personalities who gave us the opportunity to enter their warehouses and taste the distillates straight from the cask.
With our expertise we want to show especially rum and whiskey lovers this wonderful, spirits world and express the diversity through our extraordinary single casks.
Guess what? We #GotA feeling that it’s time to share our thrilling discoveries with you!
Robert Bauer
Robert started his journey into the spirits world with Single Malt Whisky in 2011 and was fortunate to gain experience by visiting many distilleries such as trying hundreds of whiskies and reviewing them on his spirits blog Whisky Digest. A few years ago he fell in love with R(h)um and Brandy, but has a particular weakness for bold, cask strength Armagnac.
At Grape of the Art, Robert is responsible for sales and purchasing.
Oliver Gerhardt
Oliver is the founder of RumX, the largest rum database in the world where rum lovers share their tasting impressions and get comprehensive information on more than 15,000 r(h)ums.
Through the Stuttgart Rum Circle, Oliver discovered his passion for Armagnac and Cognac and learned to appreciate the diversity of distilled grapes. In particular, Armagnacs that are close to the Demerara rum style have taken his heart.
Oliver is responsible for GotA’s marketing and keeps everything running in the background.
Sascha Junkert
Sascha is very passionate about cocktails and spirits since 2008. His first love was rum and especially rhum agricole from Martinique and Guadeloupe. During a visit in Freiburg he tasted his first Armagnac (a Clos Martins) and curiously tried many more in the last years. Now, Armagnac is the focus of new discoveries, which led to the start of Armagnac.de in 2021.
Sascha is in charge of GotA’s product management.
Christian Maier
Christian’s first encounter with the world of spirits was a single malt whisky tasting back in 2009. Coming from there his passion for Scottish single cask bottlings at cask strength grew fast. A few years ago he discovered R(h)um and instantly fell in love with the numerous new flavours. Collecting impressions of different styles and experiencing the variety are more important to him than focusing on a particular spirit, profile or distillery. This is why he also appreciates Cognac and especially Armagnac a lot.
Christian is the creative soul of the team and takes care of our design.
Leonard Stumpf
After intensive exploration of cocktails since 2009, Leo initially discovered his passion for pure enjoyment, especially of rum, and worked for several years at the Hemingway Bar in Freiburg. Since 2013, he has also been enthusiastic about American whiskey. Armagnac came into focus for him in 2018, after he had the pleasure of tasting the L’Encantada Pibous #187 from one of the Brandy Brothers. His favorites include old ryes, wheated bourbons, strong Demerara and Jamaica rums as well as rhum agricole and intense armagnac.
Leo is the sensible voice in the team and is responsible for finances.