Nierstein (German pronunciation: [ˈniːɐ̯ʃtaɪn]) is a town belonging to the Verbandsgemeinde Rhein-Selz in the Mainz-Bingen district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.

Above Nierstein lies a hillside vineyard described as a “Red Slope”, made as it is a part of the Rotliegend, which stretches from northern Nackenheim to western Schwabsburg.

Two thousand years ago on Nierstein's current site stood a Roman settlement bearing the name Bauconica Nova.

The occasion was the donation of a church and a vineyard to the Bistum Würzburg by the Majordomo (mayor of the palace) Carolman son of Charles Martel.

Baroque noble estates define the streetscape and recall a mediaeval epoch in Nierstein’s local history when some two dozen noble families lived here as Imperially immediate fiefholders who shaped events by holding the office of Vogt, Schultheiß or Burgmannen, as Schöffen (roughly “lay jurists”) at the knightly court or the ecclesiastical court.

To be stressed from among these are the former noble houses of the Barons of Knebel or Hundt von Saulheim (oldest timber-frame house) as well as those of the families Knebel von Katzenelnbogen and Waldbott von Bassenheim, the Metternich’sche Hof (oldest estate complex), the Haxthäuser Hof (a Baroque manor belonging to the family Haxthausen), the gateway arch and wing of the Schloss von der Leyen and the Dalberg-Herding’sche Schloss (in the house chapel there are wall and ceiling paintings by Jakob Götzenberger in Nazarene style worth seeing[4][6]).

It was built using stones from the old Königsstuhl between Nierstein and Lörzweiler, where in 1024 the conclave of princes elected Conrad II as the first Salian to sit on the German throne.

Saint Kilian’s Catholic Church, which can be seen far afield, perched upon a hill rising up at the Rhine valley, defines Nierstein’s skyline, although this is also marred somewhat by a former malthouse’s tall buildings.

Sironabad: In 1802 remnants of a roughly 2,000-year-old Celtic-Roman spring sanctuary of goddess Sirona on the municipality’s southern edge near the railway crossing at the former quarry.

[4] The Belgian salesman Martin van der Velden leased the lands, had the four springs (two freshwater, two mineral water, of which one had a mineral content comparable to the recognized healing spring on the south slope of the Taunus near Weilbach) housed under a roof in a building shielded against flooding that served as a taproom, and he sold the water in Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and even the United Kingdom.

Near Nierstein on the other side of the Rhine, not far from the Kornsand-Geinsheim linking road, at 49°52′11″N 8°23′1″E / 49.86972°N 8.38361°E / 49.86972; 8.38361, is a transmission facility for SWR’s VHF broadcasts consisting of a 138 m-tall guyed steel-lattice mast with a triangular cross-section.

This mast was originally part of the Bodenseesender directional antenna at Meßkirch-Rohrdorf, which was dismantled in the 1970s and reassembled in Nierstein in 1981.

Until a few years ago it was well known beyond the region for an historical “wine village” built on the marketplace in the form of a big castle.

As an extra for those on these tours, groups of up to 14 guests are driven by tractor to the vineyards on the “Red Slope”, while being given the opportunity on the way to sample the slope's wine as part of the Weck, Worscht un Woi (“buns, sausage and wine” in Rhine Franconian dialect).

Nierstein is characterized to a considerable extent by winegrowing, and with 783 ha of vineyard, of which 75.6% is used for white wine varieties and 24.4% for red, Nierstein is, after Worms (1 490 ha), Rhenish Hesse’s biggest winegrowing centre, and Rhineland-Palatinate's sixth biggest.

See also: The municipality's second biggest field of economic endeavour is tourism, catering to hikers and cyclists as well as day visitors.

The outlying centre of Nierstein-Schwabsburg currently counts 7 hotels and 24 guesthouses (pensions), many of which are housed in renovated wineries.