1892

‘Kommerzienrat’ August Weiss (1832-1927), head of the company since 1866 and a member of the Reichstag for the constituency of Esslingen since 1889, vigorously attacked the planned taxation on sparkling wine. Successfully quashed at first, in 1902 the sparkling wine tax was nevertheless introduced in order to finance the expansion of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Canal and the ‘fleet augmentation’. As it was said mockingly at that time, the Imperial Navy ’swam‘ in champagne. In 1892, August Weiss also became a founding member of the Syndicate of German Sparkling Wine Producers, from which the Deutscher Sekt Verband (German Sparkling Wines Association) emerged in 1908.