It's the trail marker that winds you through a rich wonderland of vines, woods and quaint villages. Sometimes the hike is a bit tough, but mostly one can't help but be impressed with the natural beauty, the obvious hard work at producing healthy vines and tasty wines, but most of all, just gorgeous German countryside. Is it Germany at its best? I can only say it must be part of its "best."
It's the trail marker that winds you through a rich wonderland of vines, woods and quaint villages. Sometimes the hike is a bit tough, but mostly one can't help but be impressed with the natural beauty, the obvious hard work at producing healthy vines and tasty wines, but most of all, just gorgeous German countryside. Is it Germany at its best? I can only say it must be part of its "best."
July 31, 2009 by ivyink2009 | Edit
This winery smelled exactly as I expected, like musty fermenting wine and grapes — in other words, like a comfy, well-used cellar.
The Baroness, amidst our wine lesson.
It’s a bittersweet day today. Yes, we only had to hike ~11 kilometers, but it means the end to our beautiful vacation. Fittingly, we finished the day at a wonderful winemaker’s –Weingut Freiherr Roeder von Diersburg. According to the “Baroness” who runs the place with her “Baron” husband, this winery has been there since the 1400s. With only 7 or 8 hectares of land, they sell most of their wine to the people who come through Diersberg and the rest to restaurants – also made familiar to their wine by passing through. And that’s just the way they want it, as the Baroness pointed out, saying that having too many customers ruins the secret, and they like being a well-kept secret in this corner of the Black Forest, where I got a wonderful education on German wine.
The Baroness, who couldn’t be much older than I am, had strong opinions about wine, so here is the information I gathered from her in a nutshell if you don’t get the chance for your own lesson here sometime.
Rülander…a pretty ordinary wine, not worthy of much attention…
Dornfelder…a red wine that has absolutely no flavor only red grape coloring…
Riesling…it’s the white wine that this region was made for…
Müller-Thurgau…oh, wait, it’s really the wine this region was made for. Anyone would love this varietal when it comes from here…
Weissherbst…not as edgy as the Spätburgunder Rosé that winemakers are making these days, but due to historic ties, it is a wine that will always remain…
Spätburgunder …the pinot noir grape from which this wine comes should produce good wine here, but people don’t care for the grape appropriately. It takes a bit of extra handling in the winemaking process. It produces its own smokiness without oak barrels, and if the grapes aren’t ripe enough, oak barrels only hampers the wine…
Whether you agree or disagree with the Baroness, the wine we tasted was quite remarkable. Her Riesling was far more aromatic than I had tasted thus far. Her Spätburgunder was worthy. And, surprisingly, this winery had planted Cabernet that also proved global warming, while challenging to the winemakers here, is making red wines more of a possibility.
Overall, a wonderful one-on-one experience, making it all the more sad that I depart tomorrow…by car.
Posted in Ortenauer Weinpfad | Tagged Diersberg, Dornfelder, Muller-Thürgau, Riesling,Ruländer, Spätburgunder, Weingut Freiherr Roeder von Diersburg, Weissherbst | Leave a Comment »
I like serendipity
July 30, 2009 by ivyink2009 | Edit
Gegenbach is such a quaint town and full of places to enjoy the local wine.
It’s always nice to turn a corner and find a place to taste wine!
Last year for our family vacation, we actually hiked with our 9 and 12 year old sons in a different (and flatter) section of the Black Forest, which we all enjoyed – even our kids, to some degree. Even then, it was great to turn a corner, reach a clearing and find a wonderful restaurant, a spring with ice cold, drinkable water, a unique playground or even just an unusually beautiful trail passage.
Our hike this year, with just my husband Tony and I, we have been no less surprised by serendipitous finds. From a village along the trail that provides a restaurant with great wine when you are most tired and hungry to mini pools intended to cool off one’s tired hiking feet, these things are probably what make hiking like this so much fun. You never know what awaits you around the next bend. Yes, it might be another steep trek uphill, but it also could be a Weinhaus with tastings available in a pretty and comfortable setting. That was the case today when we reached the Schloss Ortenberg Weinhaus. We were only there long enough to taste a very good Klingelberger Riesling and Weissburgunder, but it was just so unexpected and nice.
I find the hiking trails in Germany quite fascinating as they are literally throughout the country, taking you anywhere you want to go as long as you can read the markers. Sometimes, when you are most unsure of your next move – so many trails crisscross and run nearby one another – you must rely on your gut and where you think you are headed. However, most times, the markers are there to guide you. In our case, we followed the Weinpfad red diamonds with grapes in the center to lead us onward and upward and down and back up again.
Today, we finished up in Gegenbach, which is the kind of city I adore. It looks like a little toy town with its Tudor architecture and bountiful flower boxes everywhere. The cobblestone streets are accented with a human-engineered stream along either side that leads to drinkable water springs for dogs and humans. In our case, Olive has now learned to jump up into the basins to cool off her hot, tired paws. And, the water came just when our bottles were empty.
We hiked our greatest amount today — nearly 30 km, so we were eager to treat ourselves at dinner, which we did. We’ve seen trout in streams on our hiking, so it was a natural choice for dinner, which the chef prepared in sheets of birch bark to provide a smoky flavor. With gelato to finish the night, it was a great end to a great day.
Posted in Ortenauer Weinpfad | Tagged Black Forest, Gegenbach, Germany, hiking,Klingelberger, Riesling, Schloss Ortenberg, Weissburgunder | Leave a Comment »
Enjoying a little pink
July 29, 2009 by ivyink2009 | Edit
I’ve written before about Rosé wine on my Hinsdale Cellars (http://www.hinsdalecellars.com/vintelligence) wine blog, so it’s probably no surprise that on a steamy day with 8 kilometers of hiking already complete and a castle beckoning, we had to stop and taste a little Weissherbst from Weingut Markgraf von Baden Schloss Staufenberg in Durbach. Schloss is the German word for castle, and sitting atop a Schloss provides a wonderful view of vineyards on a clear day.
Wine with an incredible view!
A refreshing little wine that hit the spot, the Weissherbst is a Rosé made from the best quality Pinot Noir grapes. Maybe it was the brambles I nibbled on along our hike, but the wine seemed to have berry, maybe currant, flavors. It proved to be a nice light wine that was perfect for the high heat—more so than the Riesling that followed although it was a great wine in its own right—just a little too much for the weather of the moment. I’m getting a bit jaded about Rieslings, however, as they are so consistently citrus-ly good accompaniments to food and very abundant here.
In any event, I’m not sure you can even get this particular wine outside Germany, so perhaps it is one of the many reasons I’m uncovering to come to the Black Forest. I’m not posting a long blog today as I find that this picture my husband, Tony, took of me, sort of sums up how delightful our wine experiences were today and so far on this trip: wonderful wine in great venues. Can you see how gorgeous the vineyards look? We moved on down this “hill” to have “vespers” plates with some more Weissburgunder from this same winery. Hard to hike afterwards, but thankfully, we only had 4-6 kilometers.
Posted in Ortenauer Weinpfad | Tagged Black Forest, Durbach, Riesling, Rosé, Schloss Staufenberg, vineyards, Weingut Markgraf von Baden, Weissburgunder, Weissherbst |Leave a Comment »
Verdant vineyards
July 28, 2009 by ivyink2009 | Edit
So many vines! It makes one wonder how we can all consume all the wine that they ultimately help produce. The views are gorgeous though, especially on a sunny day.
Homemade liqueurs--50 Euro cents/ glass! And on the honor system at that--you just dropped your change in the container provided. Very nice.
It was at this non-drinking-water fountain that Olive decided this water was meant for her! She jumped in to cool her very hot, tired paws since she wasn't interested in the homemade liqueurs. No fountain, pond or stream was safe from Olive afterwards!
This is the second day that we’ve had pretty substantial hiking involved, so not surprisingly our focus was far more on the vineyards than the wines. Yes, lunch included another wonderfulWeissburgunder with trout almandine, but we spent so much time amongst the grapes themselves, I only regret that our pictures don’t capture the beauty and the expanse of the vineyards here. It’s been a tiring albeit satisfying day of wonderful vistas and even a few short chats with local grape growers. Literally, we have walked kilometers and kilometers of vineyards, climbing and descending the tall hills on which they sit. But that is not the only landscape we experienced. In between stretches of vineyards, we get a taste also of the Black Forest, going through dark passages of earthy-scented woods. Additionally, quaint orange- and red-tiled roof houses make up villages that pop up in the middle of nowhere, making one wonder where to find Little Red Riding Hood or Hansel and Gretel.
I’m currently reading The Geography of Wine by Brian J. Sommers, a geography professor at Central Connecticut State University who teaches courses about geography and wine. The reason I mention this book is because it provides an interesting perspective about land use, culture and wine making. From his introduction on, he lays out so many geographical considerations of winemaking, such that my husband and I seem to talk about each new thing I discover there as we walk. Lately, I’ve been caught up thinking about Sommers’ comment about winemakers’ choice to grow grapevines parallel or perpendicular to the slope of the hill they sit on. Here, it mostly seems they plant vines parallel with the slope, but I don’t know why…yet. Clearly, I have to read further.
We are not hiking at the most popular time of year here, according to a local guy we encountered near Lauf. He said that in May and October, groups of 30, 40 and 50 people at a time might be seen hiking through this same trail we are on. We have hardly seen anything like that. In fact, today, I think we saw no more than six or seven individuals all day. It’s nice to have the trail to one’s self, but I’m sure at stops like the one where a distiller had samples of homemade liquors chilling in ice cold water, the atmosphere is vastly different.
Around 5 p.m. too we started seeing far more individual growers, walking their rows of grape vines to personally trim the fruit to their own specifications – a big difference from what we saw around one of the larger winemaker’s vineyards, Alde Gott, where someone had a neat apparatus like a tractor that traveled down the aisles between the vines essentially mowing off the tops of all the vines to the very same height. It very well may produce the same great result in wines, but the former certainly had a more personal feel, especially as these folks were close enough to us to say “hello” and answer a few question. The color and connection from that portion of the walk certainly dove home the idea that it’s nice tasting the wines that come from this region, but being immersed in the landscape offers a richer appreciation of the locality as well as the obvious hard work and inevitable risks associated with being in this business.
Posted in Ortenauer Weinpfad | Tagged Black Forest, vineyards, Weissburgunder, wine |Leave a Comment »
Finding great food, wine with an ‘angel’
July 27, 2009 by ivyink2009 | Edit
We’d walked nearly 13 kilometers. Our poor dog, Olive was not only panting and hot to the touch, but now reclining to insist on a break in the shade from the hot, windless sunny day. Thankfully after a brief respite, we found ourselves in Neuweier, Germany, at 1 p.m. with an attractive Weinstubeby our side. Named Zum Engel (tr. the angel), owned by the Weinhaus Fröhlich (tr. happy wine maker), the restaurant seemed to be our destiny – a chance to relax, enjoy local wines and savor tasty Swabian food.
In terms of wine, I had a wonderful opportunity to taste what I thought were great examples of Grauburgunder and Weissburgunder better known as Germany’s Pinot Grigio and Pinot Bianco or Blanc. A caveat: sitting in an outdoor café where the kitchen aromas are soothing and the surrounding flowers unbelievably gorgeous could very well make any wine taste great. That said, the wines I tasted from Weinhaus Fröhlich seemed particularly perfect on this hot occasion. Initially, I had the 2008 Grauer Burgunder Kabinett, trocken, as we waited for our food. It was a light, but crisp, cooling white wine with definite citrus flavors – not so tart that it couldn’t be enjoyed without food. It was a refreshing start to the meal, and when I asked for a good wine companion to my veal in Jäger or mushroom sauce, the waitress suggested I try a Weisser Burgunder, which was equally pleasing. If I understand my wine research correctly, Pinot Blanc is a genetic variation of Pinot Grigio, which is a genetic derivation of Pinot Noir. I’m not sure how the Pinot Blanc and Pinot Grigio vary, in general, but in this case, the Pinot Blanc seemed a bit more rounded, softer, with hints of honey, perhaps – very tasty. I only kept from ordering another glass because I knew I had approximately 10 more kilometers to hike that day.
My husband, Tony, so smitten with the Sheurebe from the day before, could not resist ordering it again. The nose was undoubtedly peachy and although a sweeter wine than I usually like, Tony really enjoyed it. Sheurebe is a wonderfully smelling (and tasting) wine, reminding me a bit of Gewürztraminer.
Re-energized after a two-hour break, we talked about the satisfying culinary experience several times in those tiring kilometers before reaching our hotel for that day – definitely an unexpected high point to our wine walk.
Posted in Ortenauer Weinpfad | Tagged Germany, Grauburgunder, Scheurebe,Weissburgunder, wine | Leave a Comment »
Scheurebe anyone?
July 25, 2009 by ivyink2009 | Edit
The vineyard was on an incredibly steep hill at Schloss Eberstein, but the view was tremendous.
A table filled with wine glasses at Eckberg Stuben. It was like an oasis, as we departed the forest.
Baden-Baden is filled with flowers. Here is just one park that many were strolling through because it was just so darn gorgeous.
It’s amazing what a difference 14 kilometers makes. We headed out from Gernsbach today around 9:30, going straight uphill full tilt until we reached Schloss Eberstein, our first winery by 10:30 or so. Only problem was that it wasn’t open yet! Hah. Gorgeous location very high up on a hill from Gernsbach with the most amazing view, and WONDERFUL outdoor seating if you are there when the restaurant is actually open. Can’t say much about their wines since I didn’t get a chance to taste them. Oh well–we’ll look for them in a grocery in Baden. So we soldiered on like good wine lovers, trudging up further to 450 meters before starting downhill. The woods were filled with gorgeous views and interesting mushrooms, slugs and salamanders. Olive, our dog, was in heaven, leading the way on a trail that we only met up with probably a dozen other people all day. We took our time, and by the afternoon we arrived at the Eckberg Wein Stuben, which was incredibly pleasant for sitting outside and tasting wine. They make a wide variety of wines, from Rieslings and Spätburgers to some things we hadn’t heard of or tried before, including a Scheurebe. Anyone ever heard of it? A cross (literally) between Riesling and an unknown wild grape. The story goes that a gentleman by the name of Scheu was in search of a better Riesling and came up with this varietal, which is now named in his honor. It’s a VERY aromatic wine and generally a sweet one as well. In this case, however at Eckberg Stuben, they had produced a dry version that they described as having black currant and lemon grass flavors with a minerally crisp sour taste. The first thing I noticed was that the nose was incredibly grassy–like fresh-cut grass, and the taste was actually quite citrusy or grapefruity. Some criticize this varietal when it is produced as a dry wine as being a flat grapefruit flavor, but it was far from flat. In fact, it was the wine that impressed us most of the SIX we tried there. Somehow, we made it out of the place, able to hike our final two kilometers to Baden-Baden, and now we are planning and plotting our evening here. This truly has to be one of the most beautiful cities in Germany. It’s filled with gardens everywhere, and it’s known for its Baden, or natural springs. Spas are everywhere here — private ones in hotels and two very prominent public ones. The question is, however, where do we find some really terrific wine?
Posted in Ortenauer Weinpfad | Tagged Baden-Baden, Riesling, Scheurebe,Spätburgunder, wine | Leave a Comment »
The wine journey begins
July 24, 2009 by ivyink2009 | Edit
Flowers were everywhere, especially hydrangeas.
The Kur Park had a wonderful playground for kids that included wooden statues like this one of the witch or Hexe, for kids to climb on. There was also a crocodile.
Sunny, warm weather started our day and drive down to Gernsbach for the start of our Ortenauer, Black Forest hiking and wine vacation. Tony dropped me off with our dog, Olive, in Gernsbach, continuing on to Dierberg (the place we finish up the tour in 7 days) to park the car and return by train. While he was gone, Olive and I had a chance to explore Gernsbach, which is a seemingly small town at the start of this fairly renowned “wine trail.” This section of Germany, known as Baden – I live in the Baden-Wurttemberg region – is well known for some of the best Rieslings in Germany. From my research, however, it appears that has not always been the case. Books from the base library, which were written in the ‘70s said that at that time, this region was known for its Gewürztraminers, which are now still around, but hardly the star wine varietal. In general, Germany doesn’t seem to get hot enough to produce rich red wines, so generally the best wines are white. At least that is what I have always thought. Interestingly, this section of Germany is the warmest, so Pinot Noirs seem to get quite a bit of respect from here, known as Spätburgunder. I have to say, I’m looking forward to tasting these to see if they have a little more “umph” than the few I’ve tried in Stuttgart. Nearly half the vineyards here in Baden are planted with Pinot grapes, according to the wine tourism folks, so I am hopeful. I’m also looking forward to trying some less familiar varietals, such as Grauburgunder (Pinot Gris), Ruländer, Muller-Thürgau, Weissburgunder (Pinot Blanc) and Gutedal, which is described as a light, mild white wine. These varietals range from very dry to semi-sweet, I believe. Additionally, we have Rosé wines under the heading of Weissherbst that also run the gamut from dry to sweet, so much tasting to do and wines to discover.
Here at the start of the Ortenauer section of Baden, I don’t have any wineries right here in the heart of Gernsbach, but I did visit the Der Katz’sche Garten, which is a small sculpture garden alongside the river and the Kurpark, which also had wonderfully trails and gardens leading up to an expansive pool complex. Summer is clearly a great time to visit. Flowers are everywhere. Today was also the weekly market, so lots of color there with the fresh produce in abundance and the wonderful woman selling all kinds of vivid yarns and knitting materials. I bought a Kiebitz Muller-Thürgau bottle of wine at the local grocery for a song – less than 3 Euro and plan to have a picnic with Tony back at the Kurpark. It’s a halbtrocken wine, meaning semi-sweet, and it’s also from outside the Ortenauer area. I believe it’s from Bötzingen, near Kaiserstuhl, which is known for an inactive volcano. A geologist friend has very strong feelings about volcanic soil making for good wines, so I’ve been intrigued with that region. I’ll keep you posted on the wines we taste and the things we see and do. Tomorrow we head up to the Weingut Schloss Eberstein as part of a 14.5 kilometer hike. We walk to our highest point in the entire vacation at 450 meters. It’s pretty much all uphill tomorrow, but they say the walking should only take about 3 ½ hours, which gives us plenty of time to taste wine throughout the day as we encounter wineries/vineyards.
Posted in Ortenauer Weinpfad | Tagged Der Katz’sche Garten, Gernsbach, Grauburgunder,Gutedal, Muller-Thürgau, Ortenauer, Riesling, Ruländer, Spätburgunder, Weissherbst, wine| Leave a Comment »
