The winery is located in the municipality of Johannisberg (district of Geisenheim) in the German wine-growing region of Rheingau. Emperor Napoleon (1769-1821) had taken possession of Johannisberg Castle in 1806 during his campaign against Prussia and handed it over to his marshal François-Étienne-Christophe Kellermann (1735-1820), the Duke of Valmy, for administration. However, from 1808 to 1810, there were three unsuccessful harvests. In 1811, the enterprising wine merchant Gottlieb Mumm (1782-1852) from the famous Frankfurt banking and trading family P. A. Mumm made an offer to purchase the entire next wine harvest from Schloss Johannisberg before the harvest. The marshal was happy about the supposed hasard, because the offered 32,000 florins were good money for a perhaps again bad harvest.