Wine Probe in the Rheingau

*Edit 3/3/2010* - I salvaged the post below from another blog that I started in Germany. I deleted that one but I wanted to save this post. */Edit*

Julie and I just returned from a Wine Probe (tasting) in the Rheingau Wine District of Germany. It's about 20 minutes away from our house in downtown Wiesbaden, out in the country along the Rhine River. We arrived to a glass of rotwein sekt (red champagne) for a welcome and then went on to sample 7 different types of wine - 1 red, 1 rosee, and 5 different types of Reisling white wine. In addition to the tasting we enjoyed a traditional meal of Herb cream soup, roasted pork with sides of spatzle (german noodles) and red cabbage. We finished it all off with Oma's (grandma's) apple strudel.

Not only did we enjoy outstanding wine, but we also learned alot about German wines and wines of the Rheingau in particular. For example, only 4% of the grapes grown in the Rheingau are blue grapes for red wine; the rest are the white wine grapes and are predominatly the Riesling grape. Also, a bacteria brought to Europe from the U.S. in the 1800s decimated the grapevines by destroying the root; strangely, American grape vine roots weren't effected by this bacteria. To this day, by law, all European grape vines have to be grafted onto roots from American grape vines; most of the vineyards maintain their own supply of vines/roots of the American strain of the grape vine.

To cap off the entire evening, Helmut, the Lord Mayor of the town where the vineyard was located, invited us down to the wine cellar below his home. His home was the oldest in the town, existing as a sole house on the hillside before the town was even begun. During the 30 Years War in the 1600s it was burnt to the ground, but afterwards it was reconstructed exactly as it was. Being underground, the wine cellar wasn't destroyed, so we were able to go into an 800 year old wine cellar that was originally built by monks in the 1200s. Down there, Helmut opened two bottles of Riesling Spatlese that was from his family's own collection and not for sale to the public.

Quite an experience!