Riesling Adventures in the Mosel: Day 8: Ostrich in Deutschland?

This morning is an overcast and more chilly day, but it isn't raining. We need to be on the road by 09:30 as our first Weingut appointment is at 10:00 and it is a 30 minute drive in the Nahe. As we are leaving we find a nice bottle of wine from the host and a note with some contact information. This lady is a real gem and a perfect Airbnb host. We are on the road on time and make it to Weingut Schlossgut Diel located in Rümmelsheim in the eastern area of the Nahe. We are greeted by Caroline Diel the winemaker and then her husband Sylvain who will be our wine tasting host. We find very quickly that Sylvain is quite the talker and a huge personality. He is a Parisien French and married to his Deutsch wife and speaks pretty good English as well.

This VDP Weingut has been family owned since 1802. His wife Caroline is the 7th generation winemaker. They own 25 hectares inclusive of 3 Grand Cru vineyards and 2 Premier Cru vineyards. 70% of their wine is Riesling. They produce between 180,000 and 200,000 bottles each year. He confirmed the 2015 vintage was excellent due to "easy" and "perfect" growing and harvesting weather. We tell Sylvain we only have until around 11:00 as we have another appointment at 11:30. We enjoy tasting eight (8) wines and then I remind him we need to go. Another example of excellent range of dry to sweet Riesling wines. They use a team of 30 Polish pickers.

Sylvain is a very interesting guy and has a real understanding of the wine business and Riesling. He talks about playing with both the acidity level and fruitiness/sweetness levels to reach "harmony." He indicated that given the Nahe's geographical location between all the German Rhine wine areas they are perfectly situated. Terroir is the most important thing and needs the personality and abilities of the winemaker to show how the soil/terroir can show itself through the grape = individuality of taste profile. He provided a small pamphlet that shows a large hill and on the hill are three Grand Cru Riesling sites. They produce different tasting wines yet are together on the same hill. The terroir/soils are different. Also, interesting to note different colours on the hill yet all the same grape.

Interesting observation from Sylvain himself was "to be French, speaking about German wines in English..." Also, he talked about the famous annual VDP Auction which just occurred a couple of days ago. He indicated we should try this for purchase by utilizing a Commissionaire to make some bids on our behalf. Also, an option is to attend a Weingut where they didn't sell all their product, but you must buy at the auction price. We decided to buy their 2014er Pittermännchen Riesling Kabinett for 17 Euros. Grey slate site with 45 grams residual sugar and good balance.

Schlossgut Diel

Webpage pic of Sylvain, his winemaker wife Caroline and their three children.

Our next appointment was about 15 minutes at Weingut Dönnhoff. We are late as we didn't get away fast enough at the first Weingut. **Lana here--along the way we pass a winery named "Frick" and then proceed to make "what the frick?" jokes!! This is what happens when you're tasting wine and driving around a foreign country.

When we arrived at the building below nobody was answering the buzzers. I phoned their number and was told their Weingut was across the street. That wasn't the address on line. Elke greets us and is the person I had been in touch with by email. They are located in the village of Oberhausen an der Nahe. This Weingut has high ratings by the Riesling experts. "Super elegant dry and sweet Rieslings." Ironically, one quote "try their Riesling Kabinett from the Leistenberg vineyard with its enormous drive and raciness." Lana picked which wine we should buy at this winery and we purchased the 2015er Oberhãuser Leistenberg Kabinett for around 12.50 Euros without knowing this quote. Too funny--sometimes she's ahead of the curve :)

While Elke was fairly new at this Weingut she really knew her Riesling. We tasted 13 wines and did some comparison tastings. I had been warned when making the appointment that many of their 2015 vintage Rieslings were sold out. Out of all the Riesling we tasted only three were for sale and we almost begged for the last bottle of Kabinett. One of our highlights of this tasting was Elke brought out two Icewine and in particular a 2012 Riesling Icewine that was awesome. Better than our Canadian Icewine for certain. Another fantastic tasting experience. More confirmation of the importance of the soils in the taste of each Riesling.

My notes indicate they own 28 Hectares producing around 280,000 bottles annually. 80% of their bottles are Riesling. They have four generations of winemakers in the family. They export about 33% of their wine across the world. All grapes are picked by hand. We tasted for about one hour. We have a little more than an hour's drive to the Mosel. We are hungry and looking for a lunch place.

Weingut Dönnhoff (older building) as the newer headquarters is across the street.

Soil samples on the wall - very typical of the larger Weinguts.

Lineup of Weingut Dönnhoff's wines from years past.

Picture of an Ostrich we encountered while driving in the Nahe. They make this very weird 'booming' sound." There were three Ostrich penned up, but Lana got a pretty good close up picture. Would you expect to find an Ostrich of all places here in the middle of the countryside? These are huge birds that you wouldn't want to encounter in the wild. We think they were booming to warn each other that we were getting too close!!

Old wine bottles at Schlossgut Diel.

Note the small green stamp indicating "no genetically modified ingredients in the Müseli". This is a real big issue in Europe as they don't allow GMOs. In Deutschland any genetically modified foods are called "Frankenfoods."

Between the Nahe and Mosel we came down the other side of a mountain and there were plenty of hairpins on this incredibly winding road. Lana said it looked like we were driving through someone's bowel!!

Extra large fork and knife sign signifying McDonalds.

On the way to the Mosel we couldn't find any open restaurants so we stopped at a REWE and purchased cold cuts, buns, two types of wurst salat and a carrot salat. We pulled over on the road and had this 'lunch' in the car. It was pretty good especially the German bread. We arrive at Bernkastel-Kues about 15:00 and our room on the top floor is ready. We are staying at
Christiana's Wein & Art Hotel that I booked through Hotels.com. Our room is ready which is great news and there is parking very close. We are on the top floor with a small patio overlooking vineyards on the hills in the distance. Decent sized room and it has a jacuzzi tub. Lug the suitcases up the stairs and put our things away as we are here for quite a few nights. This will be our headquarters in the Mosel.

An online picture of the famous Bernkastel-Kues.

Another example of the double comforter although in this case there are two separate mattresses. Not sure about the triangular pillows though!! Check out the jacuzzi tub in the corner.

Lana has a nap while I struggle with my Macbook Pro. For some reason it is not receiving emails nor is Safari working so doing a blog would be impossible. I finally give up, but after we return from dinner it is working! Lana checks Trip Advisor for top restaurants in Bernkastel-Kues and we head for the #2 choice: Cafe Thiesen located in Bernkastel across the river from where we are staying (Kues pronounced Coos). Lana finds us a parking lot near the bridge as no vehicles are allowed in the old town. We carry our new Garmin GPS and thankfully Lana finds the restaurant down one of the narrow streets. We arrive around 18:30 and get a table in this very busy restaurant. We really enjoyed our German dinner. The food was delicious, reasonably priced, great service and the food came quickly. We can understand why it is rated #2 in a town of hundreds of restaurants.

Dining room area in Cafe Thiesen.

Lana's order of Tafelspitz (boiled beef) mit Remoulade und Bratkartoffeln. She comments that it's exactly like the dish she ordered in Vienna several years ago. Plus, a glass of Federweißer (fermenting wine grape from 4 to 10% alcohol by volume. We love the flavour but were told that there can be a reaction to the live yeasts/enzymes by your stomach. This drink is very healthy as it is full of vitamins, minerals and healthy enzymes.

Randy's order of Schweineschnitzel Weiner-Art mit Bratkartoffeln and a nice 0.21 glass of Halbtrocken style house Riesling.

OK, despite the fact we were full from dinner we bought an Apple cake to take home for later. Lana's picture doesn't reflect how hefty this piece is--it weighs about 1 pound--seriously. We borrowed a fork from REWE. ;-)

Since we are new to this town we decided to go for a short walk to get an understanding of why all these fellow tourists are here. This is such a charming German town that has been well maintained. Plus, lots of shopping opportunities and many wine bars.

I love the look of these green wine bottles.