Hans Ambrosi

Hans Ambrosi (1925–2012) took his baccalaureate at the Brukenthal high school in Sibiu in 1942, immediately before being called up and sent to the Russian front. After the war he left for Germany for good in 1947 and studied agronomy at Stuttgart-Hohenheim between 1948 and 1951, taking his doctorate two years later. He worked at the research institute for grafted vines at Geisenheim, then as a research assistant at the pomology institute at Stuttgart-Hohenheim. In 1954 he went to South Africa, where he headed the viticulture section of Stellenbosch University and laid the foundations of the Nietvoorbij institute. From 1966 he was director of the Hesse state vineyards at Kloster Eberbach, where he restored the monastery and initiated the Rheingau Music Festival. He retired in 1990 and published more than sixty books; in 2001 he received the Cultural Prize of the Transylvanian Saxons.