Day 19: Castles & Riesling Porn! (Thursday, September 8th)

Well, it appeared to have rained somewhat over night, but the new forecast for today is sunny and cloudy with maybe some rain much later. We enjoy another superb breakfast in the hotel dining room. Late start to the day as well. We have two goals today being our last day in the Mosel. First task is to visit the local castle high on the hill above Bernkastel and secondly and most important is to visit the Rieslinghaus or aka Weinhaus Porn. It makes sense to do our hiking up to the castle and later visit for a wine tasting and perhaps purchase more Riesling.

Burg Landshut is the castle very high on the hill overlooking Bernkastel. The hike is advertised as steep, but only about twenty minutes total. The history of the site is that there was an ancient Roman castle at this spot in the 4th or 5th Century. Many centuries later at the end of the 13th Century local powers built what you can now see on the hill. Another German castle overlooking a river, but it is always worth exploring this kind of history.

We took this picture from where we are staying. The castle is across the Mosel and very high up the mountain. 

                                                          Map of Burg Landshut. 

                      Selfie we took at the castle overlooking Kues on the other side of the Mosel. 

This is a great panoramic picture Lana took from the top of the castle overlooking the Mosel. We wanted to see if we could capture how the Mosel river winds around the hill behind Kues. This river makes many u-turns along its course. 

Picture of Bernkastel from on top of the castle. You can see it is like a triangle nestled into the hills and vineyards that surround it. 

                     Picture from inside the castle looking up at the stone ceiling very high above. 

The very top of the castle and you have quite a panoramic view of everything below inclusive of river, towns, hills and the many vineyards. 

                     One side of this ancient castle that cannot be seen from Bernkastel-Kues. 

For certain portions of the walk up to the castle are steep. At a regular pace you can make it to the castle from Bernkastel in about fifteen minutes. Lots of vineyards on the way up. Mostly smooth surface to walk on while hiking up but some parts are all cobble stones. Super windy today at the castle! Need to pay 1 Euro each to take the ancient stairs up to the top tower. You get your tickets from a machine and then use the ticket to gain entry towards the top by scanning and then the turnstile opens. Worth the money as you walk up a number of ancient steps and then you are at the very top. Up top we get talking to a couple from Allentown, Pennsylvania who are on a river boat cruise. They took the Yellow tourist bus up the castle like the majority of tourists. They indicated their cruise boat travels between cities during the night. At 12:00 we can hear the church bells ringing below. We spend some time watching the large tourist boats ply the waters below and find a  comfortable wooden seat to get a rest and enjoy the scenery. Maybe a 150 metres elevation gain on our hike up? 

It is lunch time and Lana googles local restaurants and we navigate our way to Wein-und- Pilsstube in Bernkastel Altstadt. Good ratings and we were keen on something casual and not expensive. This area is quite touristy.

When we arrived there were no outdoor tables available so we ate inside at the window and could watch the owner busy pouring drinks and then having her lunch with her husband when she found a couple of moments. 

Lana ordered a Schwepps Bitter Lemon with a sparkling water to cut it a bit. Randy ordered his usual glass of Riesling Spätlese. 

Flammkuchen Original mit Speck und Zwiebeln. Speck is like bacon and the second ingredient is onions. Pretty decent flammkuchen and it arrived within about five minutes of our order. You gotta love that efficiency! 

Our destination is Rieslinghaus or Weinhaus Porn as it is also known as. We visited here six years ago and did a J.J. Prüm wine tasting. Incredible selection of Mosel Riesling and knowledgeable staff. Also, Erich Weber of Hofgut Falkenstein said they would carry some of their sold-out wine. We hope to find some of his wine to buy and try some other wine as we have four slots left for wine purchases and this is our last day in the Mosel. 

We arrive and are met by Jürgen who speaks English and provides a one-page brochure that kind of explains how you can do a wine tasting or simply drink Mosel Riesling wine as it is a a wine bar. The brochure is in English, but we use Google Translate to figure out most of what it is describing.

We decide on a wine tasting of five wines from their special Wine Porn label. It will cost 9Euro which is a pretty good deal. All these wines are VPD and of the very top quality of grapes and vineyards. There are some Weingut we are unfamiliar with so that could be educational. An information brochure is provided so there are some details in English. Jürgen needs to move his car so he disappears, but Annette is available if we have any questions.

The Rieslinghaus has their own house label = WinePorn. The way it works is they have agreements with various top Mosel Weinguts to have the sole distribution of a house label wine by that maker, but under the "Wine Porn" label you see below. 

Our lineup of five wines. Starting from the right to the left they go from dry Riesling to sweeter Riesling just like a tasting in a Weingut. 

2020 Clemens Busch Trocken 

2021 Vegeler Feinherb

2018 Grünhaus Feinherb

2020 Loersch Kabinett

2018 J.J. Prüm Spätlese

OK, while it was an adventure we only liked the bottle on the far right from Clemens Busch. We were at this Weingut back in 2016 and still have our bottle that we purchased in our wine fridge. While it is a dry Riesling it did not taste dry and had a great nose. Plus, it is a biodynamic Weingut so good for the environment. We bought one bottle and found two bottles of Hofgut Falkenstein 2021 Riesling Spätlese Feinherb that we tasted last week with Erich Weber at the Weingut and loved that particular wine. We are in luck to find it!

We got chatting with Jürgen about Mosel Riesling and he prompted us on the bottle below as a great find and something to look out for. Not sure if we will find it in Canada, but we can make a note of it. At this point we only have one wine skin left and we might keep that for a wine purchase in Frankfurt.

  

Back to our hotel and Lana had an opportunity to have a good nap. I loaded the pics on our blog. Kind of a lazy afternoon for both of us. When we first arrived at our hotel, we were told we had to pay a tourist tax. This involved getting a 'card' (Die Bernkastel-Kueser Gästekarte) and then there were some discounts that applied at local places. The one that was really a good deal was at Weingut Brunnenhof which happens to be a short walk from our place in Kues. Plan for tonight will be dinner there with our two glasses of free wine. It does not open until 18:00. We arrive and find a seat in the back courtyard. Pretty obvious that the owners do not speak English which is OK. We get our free wine which is a Sekt for Lana and a glass of Riesling for me. Within a few minutes there is some drops of rain and then more rain so we move inside.

There is a paper menu - very casual. Not many food choices as they are interested in selling their wine. Once we are inside we know we need to get our food order in. It is a very long wait for the delivery of our food. I estimate around 40+ minutes. The German couple across from us ordered at the same time and received their food about ten minutes before us. While we are waiting it rains on and off so we made a good decision to come inside. 

For certain this is a local hangout and if there are tourists they will be Germans. It is a nice enough place and their wine is drinkable. We would not return given the sheer wait time for food and the fact that before we received our food we heard a microwave beeping. Yikes! Not a good indication of the quality of the food. 

Lana's order of Flammkuchen Haus dem Steinofen mit Speck und Zwiebeln. I think this is deja vu as we had this same order for lunch this afternoon. Lana stated it was a better flammkuchen. 

Randy's order of Weingulasch im Brottopf. This is a regional specialty that we have never eaten before. It is bread stuffed inside with a stew of beef and pork. Interesting dish. Lots of meat inside and I never came close to finishing the outside bread. I/we did finish the meats. I would not order it again as I am not a lover of stews, but I can see why it may be popular with people who love meat and bread! We try to figure out what exactly was getting heated in the microwave and we suspect it was the stew. 

We return to our hotel room after 20:10. Lana decides that we need to figure out what wine and clothes are going in our new luggage. She does a good job of cramming eleven (11) wine skins/bottles into our new bag and I add my soccer boots, soccer shin pads and my soccer jersey/shorts/socks etc. We are way under the weight limit so that is good news, but not much more we can add. Lana has an expendable luggage and I place two small wine bottles in my carry-on. Good to figure out now how we will accommodate all this wine in our bags. As I update the blog it is raining heavily in Kues. The weather forecast is rain and the same for our next destination being Frankfurt am Main. 

It has been a day without rushing around and enjoying the views from the castle. Plus, our last wine tasting and probably our last wine purchases. We have one wine skin left in case we find something in Frankfurt am Main to buy. Thunder and lightning occurring at 20:30 so should be an interesting weather night. Like our last place we have not watched any tv/streaming devices. The current news from Canada is the indigenous brothers who knifed and killed ten people in Saskatchewan and further injured eighteen more. Not a good reason for Canada to be in the International news. Our last day in the Mosel. Tomorrow we drive to Frankfurt am Main Flughafen to return our rental car and check in to our hotel located in the airport.