Monday, September 5, 2022

Day 15: Back in the Rheingau (Sunday, September 4th)

Another late morning for both of us. I think we got up around 08:45. Overcast morning, but forecast is for sun and highs around 28 degrees Celsius. We ate a large fruit salad for breakfast, but Lana still hungry and she figures out a spot in the Altstadt where we can have a brunch style meal. It is a twenty minute walk around 19 degrees so excellent weather for a long walk. Not very busy in Deutschland on a Sunday as hardly any businesses are open. We arrive to Café Maldaner about 11:30 and take a table outside. At this point it is not very busy outside. Our server speaks English and looks like a hipster with the classic trimmed beard and glasses. The ratings were 4.6 out of 5. French style seating where your seats face out towards the passing pedestrians.

Classic German menu. I am pretty excited about my order as it is Kaisserschmarrn (German style pancakes) which I love and we have made it at home. Pigeons roaming around and unfortunately some very pesky wasps. We love our brunch meal and the service is pretty good. Philipp is at his usual Sunday morning Judo work out. Before having kids he was an exceptional amateur judo athlete. Our bill totals 30.90 Euro and we round up to pay the bill in Cash. The men's toilet does not have a sink inside. The sink is beside the entrance door.


Lana's order of a Rhubarb Lemonade and Randy's order of a hot chocolate with whipped cream. 


Randy's delicious Kaiserschmarrn! Basically, a German style pancake torn into smaller pieces. In this case there was a plum sauce provided to spread on the pancake. I loved this. 


Lana's order of scrambled eggs with bacon, ham and cheese. Plus, a butter  croissant. Yup, we are doing some walking to get here and back so we can indulge ourselves.  ;-)




Lana loves this giant cuckoo clock that rings every 30 minutes. We remember this from our previous visits to Wiesbaden. 



In Wiesbaden, they tag their trees with their own number. Wow, what a typical German approach to managing an inventory. Great idea as they can identify each tree and then its history and any needs for management. 


Nice walk back to our apartment as most of the walk is beside a large park. We stay on the shady side of the street. Our next destination will be Weingut Robert Weil located in Kiedrich. We have been to this exceptional and famous Weingut on three previous occasions so that says it right there in terms of quality of their Riesling wines. For today you do not make an appointment, but there is open wine tasting from 12 Noon to 6 pm. Once we are back in our apartment, Philipp indicates he has a conflict in his schedule, but we will see them later at their place. 


                                     Online picture of Weingut Robert Weil. 




This is an online map of the famous Rheingau wine appellation. As you can see Wiesbaden is on the eastern fringe of the wine region. It is beautiful country and it borders the Rhein River. There are many Weinguts in the Rheingau and mostly Riesling grapes. 


We arrive at Weingut Robert Weil after about a 15 minute drive. Google Maps took us on a different route in the past, but we found parking on a very narrow lane near the Weingut. When we entered it was from the opposite direction than our previous three visits. There are two young women leading the wine tasting and we take a seat at a long wooden table outside in the courtyard under massive umbrellas. It is very hot today and I can feel the heat. We are handed a large booklet providing all the information about each wine and the Weingut itself. The cover is in the same blue as that found on their bottles. All information is in German, but the wine servers both speak excellent English (of course). 


Lana's picture of the Weingut. This is a very classy operation and is now run by the fourth generation of the Weil family. Obviously over the many decades they have profited well. In addition, they export a large amount of their Riesling and that appears to make a difference in the profitability of these German Weingut. 



We learn that they just released their 2021 vintage about a week ago. Caroline is our wine tasting lead and knows her stuff mostly. The challenge for me is it is the slowest wine tasting we have ever encountered. For certain there must be another group inside that Caroline is tasting with as she constantly disappears and we don't see her for around 15 minutes sometimes. She is good with answering some of my questions and other questions she gets the answer. Lana and I both make our wine tasting notes within the booklet. One major departure from the Mosel Riesling is these wines have much higher alcohol content at least for the dry and medium dry wines. The Mosel wines are much more full-bodied. 

Another huge difference with the Mosel is that this Rheingau Weingut like yesterday's ferments all their Riesling in stainless steel tanks. They indicate that this provides a more "refreshing character". We taste twelve (12) different Riesling and each flight is two wines so good for comparing. The pours are very generous and there is no fee for the wine tasting. Some of their Riesling does get some time in oak barrels. Most of our wine tasting is with the drier wines such as Trocken and Halbtrocken. That does skew our tasting profiles for sure. We finish the tasting with two of their Fruchtsüsse und Edelsüsse Rieslingweine which basically means noble fruit sweetness. In other words, sweeter Riesling that is much more expensive than the preceding drier wines. The residual sugar levels of the last two wines are 82 and 87.

While we are overall disappointed in many of their wines we did find two wines that we loved and purchased. Normally when we are at Weingut Robert Weil we love everything we taste and purchase at least two to three bottles. One major reason could be that the 2021 vintage wasn't as good as many previous vintages? We purchase (15.90Euro) a 2021 Weingut Robert Weil Rheingau Riesling Tradition Fruchtsüß at 11% alcohol volume and 18.1 grams of residual sugar. The wine was juicy, fruity, citrusy and was not sweet. Interestingly, this wine when sold internationally is at 23.1 residual grams of sugar as foreign customers prefer sweeter. The second bottle (48Euro) is a 2021 Kiedrich Turmberg Riesling Spätlese at 9% alcohol volume and 82 grams of residual sugar. This is a late harvest style of Riesling and at a perfect sweetness level. 

We ask Caroline if there is a café within the small village of Kiedrich and she indicates that in a short walk you arrive at Ginkgo Garten. We go to the cash register and order a piece of Blueberry Marscapone Torte for 4.40Euro. We go sit outside at a table in the shade in the cobblestone courtyard and the server brings our Torte. Like the average German dessert it is delicious but not too sweet. We pretty much vacuum this up. Lana notes that the blueberries are wild because they are the small ones. 




Lana makes contact with Philipp to confirm we are leaving Kiedrich and meeting at their house. When we arrive nobody is there, but Philipp is on his way. While we are sitting on the front step, we are surprised by Philipp arriving in an electric scooter. We have seen these parked on sidewalks all over Wiesbaden. 


Philipp and Manu's very modern home high in the hills. 


Philipp with his rented electric scooter.


Pretty easy to figure out how to operate. There is a button on the right handle you push down to accelerate. The right handle has the brake as well. Not difficult to balance on either. You need to kick start it to engage the motor. 


Yup anybody can ride an electric scooter. It was super fun to operate and it goes up to 20+ kms/hour.



Eventually, Manu and the twins return from a playground date. Another good night of conversation and learning more about life in Deutschland. We go with Philipp later to an Italian restaurant to order and then wait for our pizza, pasta and salads. The food was decent and we ate outside as it was a perfect night. Beautiful pinkish sunset as we enjoyed their view and how quiet is was. We know that both of them need to work the next day so before 22:00 we leave and say our goodbyes! Another wonderful day in the Rheingau and with good friends.






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Day 22: Return to Vancouver (Sunday, September 11th)

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