The narrow
road wound its way through the verdant rolling hills and quaint, picturesque
villages of the Saxony-Anhalt countryside. At times, this thoroughfare was
ample enough for two vehicles—some of them load-bearing trucks—while at other
points, particularly in the towns, in had scarcely enough room for one.
The square
houses of these small towns came right up to the road, as a result of having
been built in a time when the largest traffic conceivable consisted of a beast
of burden and a cart with wooden wheels. As we breezed through these towns in a
sleek, German-built automobile, I was occasionally able to glance into these
dwellings and glimpse a hand-crafted wooden table or vintage porcelain wares.
Some of these structures were extremely well-maintained, while others had exposed
bricks, stones, or even support beams. In the centers of the villages, houses
had been built consecutively and sharing a common wall, lending themselves to
the “classic European” architecture and style that I had come to expect while
dreaming of my travels on the continent.
My companions
for the day were Marcel, his wife Nancy, and their youngster. (Marcel is
Madlen’s older brother and my former coworker, who is
mentioned at the end of the previous post.) We were on our way to one of
Deutschland’s wine-producing regions, located in the heart of the Saxony-Anhalt
state. Some of the wineries are the former monasteries of centuries ago, and thanks
to their thirsty and ingenious monks, present-day Germany enjoys its beer (and
to a lesser extent, its wine) prestige. The car drove up a green hillside and
past the blooming grapevines while Marcel explained that most vineyards have
been planted on south-facing slopes so as to bathe the grapes with as much sun
as possible. Our destination, Thüringer Winery, lay among the gathering of
structures at the top of the hill. We hurried into the cool, air-conditioned
tasting room, a welcome respite from the unusually hot and humid summer day.
The German
wine tasting experience is a bit different than ones I have done elsewhere. There
was no “flight,” where I was guided through a sampling of specific 3-8 wines
that were chosen for a structured “wine tasting.” Instead, I was presented with
a sheet of all the wines produced by
Thüringer—totaling around thirty styles and/or grape varietals. Fortunately,
this was not Marcel’s first rodeo, and he informed me that we were to pick and
choose which wines we would like to taste, and at the end, buy a bottle or two
of our favorites. I happily acquiesced, and owing to my friend’s direction
(there were many varietals I had never heard of before), I was soon the owner
of a couple of bottles the ones I had liked best—a dry rosé and an unfamiliar Müller-Thurgau.
After our
first stop and before our next one, we paused for lunch in a small countryside
town. (Then again, in the German countryside, what “towns” are not small?) We pulled
up to a restaurant built onto the side of an aging—or so I thought—watermill.
It turned out that the owner of the watermill is Marcel’s business associate;
he was kind enough to give us a brief tour of the grounds and its machinery. To
my surprise, inside the old brick walls was a factory full of 21st
century wheat-processing technology, including a modern watermill machine to
generate power. To finish the tour, the proprietor gifted us a five-kilo bag of
fine wheat. We said our thank yous and made our way next door to the
restaurant, lunching on traditional and tasty local fare of meat and potatoes.
The watermill
as seen from the restaurant’s outdoor patio.
Finishing our
meal, we used extra spatulas from the kitchen to pry us off the booths, as we
had sweat ourselves into the seat material while eating. (I suppose that part
of the historic “authenticity” of the watermill and attached restaurant was the
lack of air conditioning.)
The post-lunch
digestif was at Pawis winery, built on top of a nearby hill and on the site of
a medieval monastery. What the monks of long ago began, Pawis winemakers gladly
and artfully continue today. Fortunately for us, the winery was not as
“authentic” as our lunch spot, and we slowly sampled not a small number of
their craft products in the cool air of modern technology. The tasting was of
the same format as the previous one, but I enjoyed the wines here a tad more,
as did Marcel. We readily purchased a few bottles and walked around the scenic
grounds.
Unfortunately, the other inebriated tourists had left the
backdrop by this point.
The satellite makes for a nice juxtaposition of
centuries.
Green-ermany
This wine
tasting experience, as well as many other of my Deutschland adventures, are
entirely a product of the generosity of my dear friends, Marcel and Nancy.
Thank you, to both of you.
Stay tuned
for Prague!
Full-smiles can be a challenge in sweltering heat.
