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Every now and then I go to a wine region for one, two or more days, just to be there where wines are made. Wines that I often drink or even rarely have in my glass. The "pensioners' trip" is one such venture that takes place every year. Two friends, who cannot understand that I have little access to Riesling, the wine of the Germans, and also know quite little about it, invited me to get to know German wines.

On the way in the vineyard on the hill of the old ruin in Staufen (Photo: P. Züllig)

It started a good ten years ago: three wine-loving men, not quite yet but soon to be of retirement age, stopped off at their first destination: Rheinhessen. There I was amazed at what Germany has to offer in terms of wine - especially whites. The following year we went to Franconia. By then there were four of us visiting the wine region, later five, once even six. Pfalz, Mosel-Saar-Ruwer, Württemberg, Nahe and now - a few days ago - Baden. Once or twice the trip was cancelled: Pensioners never have time! But don't worry, what follows are not travel reports, lists of vintners visited, comments on wines drunk. Rather, I would like to tell you something about the "magic of the place", about the landscape, the people, the culture, the everyday life, the special features, the customs, the encounters in places where vines grow and where wine is made and drunk.

Magic of place - at the Kaiserstuhl (Photo: P. Züllig)

From time to time, I make similar trips alone or with my wife: go to a wine region; be there; feel the everyday life; see how and where winegrowers live, how the vineyards and the vines present themselves; eat and drink in restaurants that serve wines from the region; discover wine myths; occasionally visit winegrowers. What distinguishes such trips from the usual wine tourist tramp? Perhaps this: You don't have to seek out the most renowned winemakers, taste the very best wines, drink only Great Growths and compare them with each other, assign points, weigh up and justify judgements, visit three or four wineries a day (according to a meticulous plan), rush from appointment to appointment. How did I write? Enjoying the "magic of the place".

Resting after the city tour on the Münsterplatz in Freiburg (Photo: P. Züllig).

It looks something like this: A tour of the city or town, if possible with a guide. This way, you can first get a feel for the place you'll be staying in for a few days, set priorities, sense special features, plan visits to sights, explore places to stop for refreshments. Vineyards and winegrowers are not yet in the foreground, we are more interested in what a region has to offer. So this time we were in Freiburg (im Breisgau), the green city in Baden, which gave us the feeling of living in an inner city on a human scale. In this atmosphere, even a Baden Gutedel can taste good to the Riesling fan. In any case, I always notice how much the mood in a place, in a city, in a landscape can be linked to the pleasure of eating and drinking. Schäufele with potato salad, a Gutedel wine soup, brisket with horseradish sauce, an apple fritter, Zibärtle (a noble brandy made from wild plums) to digest, all of this tastes particularly good where it belongs, in the culinary tradition of a region.

Culinara (Photo: P. Züllig)

Even before the winegrowers come the vines, the vineyards. Something that is often criminally neglected in wine tourism: the place where the vines grow. Usually, one disappears all too quickly into the tasting room of a winery, perhaps venturing as far as the barrel cellars and saying goodbye after tasting and loading the car with a few purchased bottles. Winery ticked off, was interesting, was nice, was informative. You might even have met the winemaker, the winemaker's daughter or son. The usual questions: spontaneous fermentation, cultured yeast, bottle closure, barrique ageing, large barrel, grape varieties, site designation and, and, and. Not only the winemaker, but also the questioners quickly fall into a routine. And there you are with the small differences: Is that vineyard better or this one, is that cuvée more convincing than this one, does the wine have no, too much or little wood? That's when I like to leave the room (my camera is a good excuse) and disappear into the nearest vineyard, hoping that my friends have stamina for wine tasting.

Vineyard in Weil am Rhein (Photo: P. Züllig)

This time, too, it was like almost always: what I experience on site is quite different from what I had imagined - based on my geographical knowledge, tourist images and wine experience. Achkarren is not just a top German wine site, but actually a mountain range on the Kaiserstuhl, with loess and weathered volcanic soils; the Kaiserstuhl is not just a low mountain range stretching from the Michaelsberg to the Fohrenberg, but also a growing area for the grape varieties Riesling, Silvaner, Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc, Gewürztraminer... mostly on slopes crowned by forests. What are so easily called Baden wines do not simply come from the Kaiserstuhl, the vineyard area stretches along, from Baden-Baden to the Swiss border near Weil, with quite different terroir.

Gutedel in a Baden vineyard (Photo: P. Züllig)

Baden's Gutedel is something quite different from the Swiss Chasselas, which is also called Gutedel in German. And this is not only due to the biological acid reduction and the clones. I almost think it's because of the understanding of wine, which is different in almost every place. As a red wine drinker - everyone has their preferences - I was particularly interested in Pinot Noir: Pinot Noir is the most important grape variety, not only in Burgundy or in German-speaking Switzerland, but also in Baden. While I was consistently disappointed by Pinot Noir on our first retirement trips - albeit in the somewhat more northerly growing regions - I found wonderful Pinots in Baden that rival the Blauburgunder from the Bündner Herrschaft. I still have a bet on the Swiss Pinot, and I'm afraid I might even lose it. In Weil, of all places, on the Swiss border, I tasted the best young Pinot of recent times. And on one of the evenings - this, too, is part of a typical retiree trip - I drank an excellent Pinot Noir from the Palatinate - though it was already eight years old and had now integrated the usually dominant wood in the best possible way.

A Baden Spätburgunder from the Dr. Heger winery in Ihringen (Photo: P. Züllig)

I know, now you are missing names: Huber, Johner, Salwey, Schneider, Heger, Stigler... No, we didn't visit them all. There would be a few more who are called top winemakers when you talk about Baden wines, which also regularly reap the highest marks from the wine critics. We did stop here and there in the tasting rooms, we met one or the other winemaker. This is (also) part of a pensioner-style wine tour. But we also used the time to visit the art museum, to take a walk on Freiburg's local mountain, the Schauinsland, which, however, was struggling with the fog at the time. "Drinking wine in beautiful places" is the name of a freely accessible page on Facebook: "not tasting, just drinking, sipping, tasting, talking, enjoying and writing about it!" In other words, let the magic of place guide you in wine regions.

Sincerely
Yours/Yours

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