Gau-Weinheim
Gau-Weinheim is an "Ortsgemeinde" – a municipality belonging to a "Verbandsgemeinde", a kind of collective municipality – in the Alzey-Worms district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Geography. Location. The winegrowing centre lies in Rhenish Hesse in the "Rheinhessisches Hügelland" (Rhenish-Hessian Uplands) in the Wißberg’s foothills. It belongs to the "Verbandsgemeinde" of Wörrstadt, whose seat is in the like-named municipality. History. In 767, Gau-Weinheim had its first documentary mention as "Wigenheim". Politics. Municipal council. The council is made up of 12 council members, who were elected by majority vote at the municipal election held on 7  June 2009, and the honorary mayor as chairman. Coat of arms. The municipality’s arms might be described thus: Argent a Communion jug azure, handle to sinister and spout to dexter, between two vineyard ladders gules, the dexter bendwise and the sinister bendwise sinister. The German blazon reads: "In Silber eine gehenkelte blaue Weinkanne zwischen zwei roten Weinleitern", making no mention of the ladders’ attitude. The coat of arms was bestowed upon Gau-Weinheim in 1982 by the municipality’s own council. It goes back to court seals from 1536 and 1596 that are still known today. Even then, the  Communion jug was depicted as now, but was otherwise a seldom seen heraldic charge, while two grapevines took the vineyard ladders’ place. Both charges refer to the municipality’s main line of business, which is winegrowing, and are canting, since the German words for both contain the syllable "Wein" ("Weinkanne", "Weinleitern"), as does the name Gau-Weinheim. It, of course, means “wine”. Culture and sightseeing. Natural monuments. Gau-Weinheim and the Wißberg are among the places in Rhenish Hesse where mammalian remains from some ten million years ago have been found, in the prehistoric Rhine’s Deinotherium Sands, whose name  comes from this extinct proboscid’s teeth and bone remnants, which are often yielded up by these deposits. Regular events. The yearly kermis (church consecration festival, locally known as the "Kerb") is always held on the second weekend in September.