Schloss Niederwinzer

Niederwinzer was once a small medieval fortress on the Danube near Regensburg. The first written record of a fortified seat there dates from 1314, when the Wittelsbach dukes freed the knight Paldwein ‘von Winzer’ from all taxes for his service at the battle of Gammelsdorf. The family held the site as allodial property, not a fief, and sold wine from its own vineyards. By the mid-14th century the Winzerers had vanished from local charters, and the castle passed through several noble hands before falling to the Gießer family in the 15th century. The Gießers rebuilt the house in the 16th century, adding a three-storey dwelling with stepped gables and a small turret. A second, taller tower stood behind it on the landward side, suggesting the original keep. The whole complex was surrounded by a wall enclosing a courtyard, garden and brewery. By 1685 the building was ruinous and the Deutschordenskommende Regensburg sold its income rights instead of restoring the castle. Today the only visible remains are the former brewery, now a wine shop on Nürnberger Straße, and the adjacent tavern building opposite. A stone plaque on the tavern recalls its builder, Maximilian Alban Haidt, and his wife in 1689. The vanished castle site is marked on the Bayernatlas as an archaeological monument, where fragments of the old walls and cellars still lie beneath the fields.