the winegetter

My hometown’s church

Dear friends,

just a quick update from Germany, some of you have asked how things are going.

It’s great to be back for a visit, and I am enjoying it a lot. Right after my arrival, which for various reasons brought me to the Stuttgart airport, in the south of Germany, I went to visit the Württemberg winery Kistenmacher und Hengerer. Winemaker Hans Hengerer and his wife Sabine opened their doors for me on a Sunday (after I told them that I could imagine that they had better things to do on a Sunday morning), and I spent a good three hours there. What do I say? A great three hours. We tried a host of wines, from their Rieslings to all the local varietals Clevner, Samtrot, Gelber Muskateller, a bunch of Pinot Noirs…

I am not familiar with that particular region of German wine growing, but it felt like a great introduction. I will write more about the winery shortly.

Now I am back in native Rheinhessen region, enjoying what I miss so much: the sight of Father Rhine, the vineyards on the other side, German bread, rolls and sausage meats, and just simple, enjoyable local wines. My mother and I have been hitting the theater trail, went to see Neil LaBute’s stunning, disturbing, incredible piece Bash. If ever you get a chance, I highly recommend it!

The coming weekend and some will be spent at my beloved Mosel, with seeing friends, more eating and drinking (naturally) and I am lucky to have scored tasting times at the estates Reinhold Haart (Piesport), Immich-Batterieberg (Traben-Trarbach), Kurt Hain (Piesport), Meierer (Kesten), Günther Steinmetz (Brauneberg) with room for a few more. One evening will be spent tasting some Finger Lakes Rieslings I brought with my good friend ManSoo. As you can see, most of the action will be surrounding wine…and more wineries will be visited the following week (St. Urbanshof, Karl Erbes, and Dr. Hermann).

I am truly excited about this mix of old friends and new wineries, and am looking forward to what 2012 has brought.

The biggest bummer so far has been that a tentative meeting up for joint tasting with my good friend and fellow blogger Stefano of Clicks and Corks has not come together…it would have been awesome to share these moments with him, but we both will make do, and I am looking forward to share German wine country with him another time.

That’s it for now. I hope I will get to shoot some more articles in my pipeline out over the next days and am looking forward to presenting new wineries to you soon.

Trier as seen in summer 2012 (structures left to right: Imperial Basilica from the 300s, Citizen Church from the 1300s, Cathedral foundations dating back to 300s)