The Käsbach

is the last tributary of the Main before it joins the Rhine at Kostheim. The name “Käs” is derived from the Middle High German word Kes, which means marshy ground. For hundreds of thousand years the stream carved deep into the subsurface along an ancient fault zone, to form the Käsbach Valley. It divides the Neuberg with its vineyard Kostheimer Steig and the Hochheimer Berg with the  vineyard St. Kiliansberg which belongs to Kostheim.

Millions of snails

lived in a shallow warm and slightly saline sea during the lower Miocene (about 20 million years ago). Calcium carbonate precipitated out of the water under sub-tropical conditions to form marl (a mixture of calcium carbonate and clay) and limestone. The Hocheimer Berg and the Neuberg consist of such hard limestone, which was quarried for building houses as well as vineyard walls. 

The limestone contains fossils, which determine their stratigraphical categorization. At the base of the Hochheimer Berg are the Hydrobia Beds, which contain masses of a brackish water snail called Hydrobia. The Neuberg consists of slightly older rocks, the Inflata Beds. These also contain masses of Hydrobia, but also an additional species, Hydrobia inflata, which has an inflated shell.

For over 140 years the limestone was extracted in Wiesbaden-Amöneburg for the cement, limestone and chemical industries by Dyckerhoff AG. Thus Dyckerhoff was the oldest German cement factory.