Day 18 - Saturday, August 17th Rheingau & Wine Festival

Cloudy morning as Lana walks down to the wine festival area to join Tina and Adrian at their regular Saturday market for 9 am. I update the blog, pics and travel diary. Lana returns with Tina and Adrian around 11:30 am for groceries for a meal we will cook for Philipp, Manuela, Tina and perhaps Philipp's sister Julia and brother-in-law Martin.

 Saturday market in Wiesbaden

Drive to the Rheingau and first stop is Weingut Schloss Reinharthausen. Larissa was our host and full of information and excellent english. We learned that one of their vineyards is located on an island in the Rhine river which they brand as Insel (Island). 2009 and 2012 were vintage years in the Rheingau. They rate their vineyards by soil quality, micro-climate and age of the vines.
Sekt    bubbly wine
Feinherb   off-dry
Cuvée   blend of wines
Trochen    dry
Erstes Gewächs   Grand Cru quality in Rheingau
Vinothek    wine shop
Spätlese   higher sugar content and balances with the acidic Riesling

Their wines were excellent and very good value for the dollar. We purchase two 1/2 bottles of 2009 Erbacher Schlossberg Riesling Auslese which is a sweeter wine. Cost only 16 Euros each. We really enjoyed our time sampling their wines and chatting about Riesling and the Rheingau wine area.

 Vineyard next to the Weingut.

We decide to have our lunch at their outdoor restaurant. Order a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc with our three flammkuchen. Delicious flammkuchen with three different toppings and excellent pairing with the wine. Sitting in the shade. Yup, fun!

 Our table to indulge in wine and flammkuchen.

Next stop in the Rheingau is Weingut Ems-Post. We enjoyed some of their wine at the wine festival. It is located a couple of villages over. We arrive at 1:30 pm and they are just reopening. Tasted a couple of wines, but no purchases.

We need to have our rental car back by around 2:15 pm. Cost was 90 Euro for the day and 20 Euro for our fill up before dropping off. Gas in Europe is very expensive. Take a taxi from the rental car agency and dropped off so Lana and I can get to REWE (grocery store) for some items we need for the Sunday dinner. Tina and Adrian head to their hotel to nap. Philipp comes over to the apartment for a good chat and then Lana rushs out to get to the Alessi sale before they close at 5 pm. No luck as she was two minutes late. We agree that the four of us will meet at the wine festival around 5:30 pm.

Tina and Adrian meet us at the table below around 5:45 pm. Wolfgang and Adri meet with us a little before 6 pm. We have planned ahead and grabbed a valuable table to stay the rest of the night. By 7ish Markus has joined our gang. Another beautiful night under clear and warm skies. We held our table for most of the night and would make forays for food and wine. Very quickly, we decided to just buy a bottle of Riesling rather than the glasses. I believe over the night we drank at least five bottles. Cheaper than by the glass. Lots of laughs and good catch up. More bratwurst sausages, crepes, gelato, cheese, grapes, pretzels....About five hours together at the table.

Markus is in the white shirt, Wolfgang is across from Markus and Adri (Wolfgang's wife) sits beside Markus. This is a good picture of the wine festival with tables, booths, people etc.

Wolfgang and Adri needed to leave to catch the last train back to their apartment in Heidelberg. Markus left later for his train to Frankfurt. We joined up with Philipp and his sister Julia later in another part of the wine festival so it was a late night. Wine booths shut down around 1 am. Another fun night spent with friends enjoying good wine and food.