Erpolzheim
Encyclopedia
Erpolzheim is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality
Municipalities of Germany
Municipalities are the lowest level of territorial division in Germany. This may be the fourth level of territorial division in Germany, apart from those states which include Regierungsbezirke , where municipalities then become the fifth level.-Overview:With more than 3,400,000 inhabitants, the...

 belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde
Verbandsgemeinde
A Verbandsgemeinde is an administrative unit in the German Bundesländer of Rhineland-Palatinate and Saxony-Anhalt.-Rhineland-Palatinate:...

, a kind of collective municipality – in the Bad Dürkheim
Bad Dürkheim (district)
Bad Dürkheim is a district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is bounded by the districts of Kaiserslautern, Donnersbergkreis and Alzey-Worms, the city of Worms, the Rhein-Pfalz-Kreis, the city of Neustadt/Weinstraße, the districts of Südliche Weinstraße, the city of Landau , the district...

 district in Rhineland-Palatinate
Rhineland-Palatinate
Rhineland-Palatinate is one of the 16 states of the Federal Republic of Germany. It has an area of and about four million inhabitants. The capital is Mainz. English speakers also commonly refer to the state by its German name, Rheinland-Pfalz ....

, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

.

Location

The municipality lies in the Palatinate on the German Wine Route. Erpolzheim belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Freinsheim
Freinsheim (Verbandsgemeinde)
Freinsheim is a Verbandsgemeinde in the district of Bad Dürkheim, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. The seat of the Verbandsgemeinde is in Freinsheim....

, whose seat is in the like-named town
Freinsheim
Freinsheim is a town in the Bad Dürkheim district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. With about 5,000 inhabitants, it is among the state’s smaller towns...

.

Municipal council

The council is made up of 16 council members, who were elected at the municipal election held on 7 June 2009, and the honorary mayor as chairman.

The municipal election held on 7 June 2009 yielded the following results:
SPD
Social Democratic Party of Germany
The Social Democratic Party of Germany is a social-democratic political party in Germany...

 
CDU  FWG  Total
2009 5 4 7 16 seats
2004 5 6 5 16 seats

Coat of arms

The German blazon reads: Von Blau und Silber gespalten, rechts ein halber rotbewehrter silberner Adler am Spalt, links eine aufgerichtete blaue Weintraube mit grünen Blättern.

The municipality’s arms
Coat of arms
A coat of arms is a unique heraldic design on a shield or escutcheon or on a surcoat or tabard used to cover and protect armour and to identify the wearer. Thus the term is often stated as "coat-armour", because it was anciently displayed on the front of a coat of cloth...

 might in English heraldic
Heraldry
Heraldry is the profession, study, or art of creating, granting, and blazoning arms and ruling on questions of rank or protocol, as exercised by an officer of arms. Heraldry comes from Anglo-Norman herald, from the Germanic compound harja-waldaz, "army commander"...

 language be described thus: Per pale azure issuant from the line of partition an eagle displayed argent armed and langued gules, and argent a bunch of grapes slipped proper reversed.

The village’s oldest known seal from the 16th century bears the eagle as a charge
Charge (heraldry)
In heraldry, a charge is any emblem or device occupying the field of an escutcheon . This may be a geometric design or a symbolic representation of a person, animal, plant, object or other device...

, the device also borne by the Counts of Leiningen, who held the local lordship. Late in that same century, the grapes were added to stand for winegrowing. Some later seals, however, showed another plant with three leaves. The current arms are based on seals from the 16th and 17th centuries. They have been borne since 17 July 1952.

Regular events

Each year in May, a culinary walking tour is held for fruit, asparagus
Asparagus
Asparagus officinalis is a spring vegetable, a flowering perennialplant species in the genus Asparagus. It was once classified in the lily family, like its Allium cousins, onions and garlic, but the Liliaceae have been split and the onion-like plants are now in the family Amaryllidaceae and...

 and wine
Wine
Wine is an alcoholic beverage, made of fermented fruit juice, usually from grapes. The natural chemical balance of grapes lets them ferment without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes, or other nutrients. Grape wine is produced by fermenting crushed grapes using various types of yeast. Yeast...

 with 16 sampling stops offering homemade treats amidst the blossoming fruit groves and vineyards.

Along the 6.5 km walking circuit one finds, besides asparagus dishes, also other specialities and Erpolzheim wines.

Each year on the second-last weekend in August, the Weinkerwe (wine fair) is held.

At the Erpolzheimer Martinsmarkt (market) in November, artists display their works in the open courtyards.

Wine

In Erpolzheim, the following wineries and wine estates can be found:
  • Weingut Hubach
  • Winzerhof Horst Koch
  • Weingut Kohl
  • Weingut Herbert Koob & Sohn
  • Winzerhof Ruth Mayer
  • Weingut Veddeler

Transport

Erpolzheim lies on the single-track Neustadt an der Weinstrasse - Bad Dürkheim - Freinsheim – Grünstadt railway line and it has a stop with a lovely railway station building, although it is not used as such, but rather as a house. In the village centre up by the church is a bus stop served by buses on the Busverkehr Rhein-Neckar (BRN) route 453.

Sons and daughters of the town

  • Georg Ludwig von Maurer
    Georg Ludwig von Maurer
    Georg Ludwig Maurer, since 1831 Georg Ludwig von Maurer was a German statesman and legal historian.-Biography:Maurer was born at Erpolzheim, near Dürkheim as the son of a Protestant pastor....

    (1790–1872), jurist, legal historian and politician.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK