The German chemist and viticulturist Dr. Leonhard Roesler (1839-1910) studied chemistry in Erlangen and Göttingen. From 1867 onwards he was a full professor at the Grand Ducal Baden Technical University in Karlsruhe (Baden-Württemberg). Here he was already primarily concerned with questions of wine chemistry. During this time he published the "Annalen der Oenologie" (Annals of Oenology) together with his colleague Dr. Adolph Blankenhorn (1843-1906). In 1870 he was entrusted with the management of the newly established Oenochemical Experimental Station at the Klosterneuburger Wein bauinstitut (Lower Austria), which at that time was independent of the viticultural school headed by Baron August-Wilhelm Babo (1827-1894).
In 1872 he detected phylloxera on a Burgundy vine in the "Weidlinger Spitz" vineyard. He actively helped to research and combat the pest. His son-in-law was Wenzel Seifert (1862-1942), who also worked at the institute and later became its director. In his most extensive work of comprehensive wine statistics, Roesler published the analyses of a huge number of wines from all the crown lands of the Habsburg Monarchy and the most important European wine countries. Roesler was also a co-founder of the Verein zum Schutze des österreichischen Weinbaus in 1884. In 1877, his colleague Felix von Thümen (1839-1892) described a previously unknown fungus (a vine root mould) and named it "Roesleria hypogaea". In honour of Roesler, a memorial stone was unveiled in 1931 in Klosterneuburg. A red grape variety created in 1970 in Klosterneuburg was named after him as Roesler.
Portrait: From unknown - important Klosterneuburger, PD-alt-100, Link
Grape variety: Ursula Brühl, Doris Schneider, Julius Kühn-Institut (JKI)
