Heilbronn - Economy and Infrastructure

Economy and Infrastructure

Viticulture has a long tradition in Heilbronn and is an important part of its economy to this day. Its 514 ha, two thirds of it growing red grapes, is the third largest vineyard in Württemberg's vine-growing region after Brackenheim and Lauffen am Neckar. In 1888 the vintners of the Heilbronn area combined and formed the Weingärtnergesellschaft Heilbronn, a cooperative. In 1933 that cooperative then combined with the competing cooperative Winzergenossenschaft Heilbronn that had formed in 1919 and that cooperative again merged with the Vintner cooperatives of Erlenbach and Weinsberg to form the Genossenschaftskellerei Heilbronn-Erlenbach-Weinsberg with seat just outside the city limits in Erlenbach. In addition to the cooperative, numerous independent vintners are also located here.

South of the steam power plant is located the conveyor tower of the Südwestdeutsche Salzwerke AG (SWS). The SWS runs a salt mine in the Heilbronn area. That mine was connected through an underground tunnel with the now shut-down (since 1994) salt mine Kochendorf in Bad Friedrichshall. Extraction had extended the Heilbronn mine far to the west so that in 2004 a new shaft, Konradsberg, was added — probably the last mining shaft that was constructed in all of Germany.