Forecast for today is a high of 29 degrees Celsius with bring sunny skies in the afternoon. We have our usual fruit bowl and yogurt to start the day. Our plan is to walk into the Altstadt and look for a new suitcase as we need three suitcases to accommodate our wine purchases. We brought two carry-on suitcases, but a third is needed to ensure we have capacity for the wine. We begin a load of laundry as well as it will probably be our last chance of doing laundry before we are on the plane back to Vancouver on Sunday.
I decide to begin adding our Riesling wine purchases to our Excel spreadsheet we keep for our wine inventory. This will take some time as there is a lot of information within the spreadsheet. I do get a few bottles into the spreadsheet before we leave to walk to the Altstadt. Our mission is to find a cheap suitcase. Eventually we stop at the Karstad department store and they have a luggage section and a sale on some of their luggage. Yup, it took us about 25 minutes to come to a conclusion on which luggage to purchase. We decided to buy the smaller piece of luggage on your left. Both were similarly priced and on sale. The major decision factor became whether we could use the chosen luggage in the future and the smaller piece (carry-on size) won over. Also, we needed to both be on the same page with how many wine we were hoping to put into each of our three suitcases? We have two carry-on bags which are pretty small and we may have up to eighteen (18) wine purchased by the end of our trip. Although, two of our wines are the smaller 0.375 Litre so that helps with weight and sizing.
Eeny meany miney moe!
We roll the suitcase along the sidewalk on the long walk back to our apartment. It is really hot now and after 12 noon. We have a tasty lunch in the apartment of cold cuts, buns/bread and cheeses. Very casual, but we get to move quicker onto our next task which is a trip to the Rheingau. We can finally put our laundry into the dryer before we leave. The washing machines in Europe tend to be much slower and energy efficient. For some reason, they stop a lot before ending each cycle.
OBSERVATION: In using the Toilet facilities at the Karstad department store there is an older lady sitting at a small table with a plate. Once you have finished using the facilities you drop a coin onto the plate. Apparently her job is to clean the premises.
Months ago I came across an article about Hildegard von Bingen who became a Saint in the Rheingau in the 1100s in Medieval Germany. The article described her work in the Rheingau, but also discussed the fact that the convent sells cookies with recipes from the Middle Ages. Yup, that is something I need to try. This is our first destination in the Rheingau and it is located in Rüdesheim. I did purchase two different cookies:
- Dinkel-Nervenkekse cookies (150g)
- Dinkel-Kastanien (mit Mandeln) cookies (150g)
We will hold these cookies until our return to Vancouver. I have never eaten baked goods which can trace their recipes to the Middle Ages. Can't wait. Their Tourist shop had an incredible diversity of products from wine, books, baked goods, health products etc. Lana couldn't find anything interesting to buy which has to be a first on all our trips. :-)
When we park our car in the St. Hildegard convent area it is smoking hot. There is a pretty steep walking area up to the entrance of this complex. Some of the areas are closed during a week day. We do enjoy our visit, but do not spend a lot of time here. Neither of us are Catholics and in fact we don't practise any formalized religion. I sometimes feel guilty about spending too much time in these hallowed areas.
Map provided near the parking lot before you make the long trek up to the convent. The convent is in operation and run by the nuns.
When we visit any historical church in Europe, Lana always puts coins into the slot and purchases a candle to light. A good tradition.
For certain the key destination of our plan today was a wine tasting at Weingut Leitz located in Gesenheim which neighbours Rüdesheim. The address from the person I was communicating with was in Rüdesheim so we showed up at that address. Nope! Fortunately when we pulled up to the home front a company van was just going to pull out. They asked what we were looking for and told us to follow them to the actual Weingut in Gesenheim. That was lucky for timing. It was a short drive away. The reason we wanted to come to this Weingut is that when we were at the Rüdesheim Wine Festival a number of years ago with friends we loved their Riesling and purchased some bottles.
When we arrived at their facility you need to walk up a long stairwell to a modern building with lots of windows. We rang the buzzer and Danila was the only person in the office and seemed rather upset we were asking for a wine tasting. I indicated that Francesco knew we were coming and he was not there and the other office person was on vacation. Clearly Francesco did not communicate with Danila about our planned visit. We sat at a large rectangular table for our wine tasting and after about 15 minutes she seemed more comfortable with us. She provided a pamphlet with all their wines listed and ordered in terms of hierarchy of their wine production. As usual the pours were very generous and no tasting fee.
My notes:
- very large enterprise with at least 130 hectares of vineyards they either own or share/rent
- basically most of their Riesling is fermented in stainless steel
- some of their wine spends time in German oak barrels
- they export to Canada but only the Ontario LCBO
- most of their Riesling is exported and their new online shop has increased sales
- we did spend a fair amount of time and covered the range from dry Riesling to sweet Riesling
- we purchased two Riesling being their 2021 Magic Mountain Rüdesheim Riesling Trocken at 17.50Euro and this is one of their most popular Riesling as it uses their higher quality grapes and vineyards at a higher elevation + hand-picked
- the other bottle purchased was their Berg Roseneck 2018 Rüdesheim Riesling Spätlese VDP Grosse Lage at 7.5% alcohol volume (we loved this sweeter wine)
There was another Weingut in the area that we loved at the Rüdesheim Wine Festival and we in fact visited their wine tasting room during the festival with our friends Adrian and Tina. It was super difficult locating Weingut Georg Breuer in Rüdesheim due to road construction. There was parking beside their building so we were in luck. Lana decided to forgo the wine tasting and relaxed on the couch and checked out the art work in the room. I was looking forward to this given we loved the quality of their Riesling a few years ago.
My notes:
- they own 40 Hectares of vineyards and all their wines are from their own vineyards
- Tim is my wine tasting lead
- they export 60% of their wine and that is mostly to Nordic countries
- they started their harvest last week which is only the second time in 140 years they started this early!
- their Weingut has three tiers of Riesling from Village level up to Terra Montosa level and finally to their best at Grand Cru level
- most of our tasting was 2021 and these wines were almost crystal clear!
- the fact the Riesling was so clear really threw me off and overall I did not enjoy their wines
- mostly their wine is fermented in stainless steel, but some of their wine aged in German oak barrels
- 2021 was a cooler year so not as much heat + too much rain and high humidity and early picking
- maybe I was disappointed as this was simply not a great vintage
- I did purchase one bottle of their Noble Sweet Riesling: 2021 Rheingau Auslese Goldkapsel being a 0.375 litre small bottle at 18Euro. 96 Grams of residual sugar and 8.3 grams of acidity.
We drove back to our apartment. Unfortunately on arriving there were a lot of parked cars so super hard to navigate to our parking spot.
Example this afternoon as to just how difficult it is to navigate to our parking spot! Lana backed the car out from being parked under the second light wood coloured balcony on the left of this photo!
GAS STATIONS are different in Deutschland, but only because you fill up your gas tank and then you go inside and pay. The honour system! It has been decades since Canada and the USA had this type of honour system. Oh yeah, Lana found an International NY Times newspaper at the gas station!
Around 18:00 we figure it is time to head out for a good German dinner. Lana googles Haus Waldlust located about 6 kms away on the main street outside our apartment but in the opposite direction to the Altstadt. Off we go, but I give the car keys to Lana to navigate us out of our parking spot. She is superior to me in this type of finesse driving. Once we arrive to the restaurant it is almost impossible to find parking! We luck into a spot that isn't too far of a walk from the restaurant. Plus, we get a table outside on the side. We find out the owner needs to keep spots open inside and outside for a group of regulars who will decide on their arrival if they eat inside our outside. We find a table right beside a group of three. Sometimes they speak English as the older father had moved to the USA and then back to Deutschland. His American daughter spoke fluent German.
The Persian server was very keen on providing great service. His english was excellent as well. While we waited an unusually long time for our food to arrive it was good to relax in this particular spot as it was shaded and fairly cool. We knew it was time to go after we completed our meal as one of the older regulars was just finishing rolling her own cigarette and for certain the smoke would have drifted our way. ;-)
Lana's iPhone app (Google Lens) can translate from original text into English. We use this sometimes when there is so much text we can't decipher. Much easier to travel when you have the ability to translate the native language into English. But Lana figured out most of what food was on this menu.
Back to our apartment and it is a beautiful night. We are both over 10K steps. Lana has created her own crossword grid to do a cross word puzzle from an electronic newspaper she has which I think is quite something! We have our windows open as we are hoping to get the apartment cooled down --- no air conditioning. We are thinking tonight we may get to bed at a decent hour. Before the end of the night I am hoping to inventory all our fourteen (14) bottles. This leaves us five (4) more wine to purchase if we like. Before 22:00 I finished inputting all our new wine so I accomplished my task. Time to get to bed.
No comments:
Post a Comment