Welcome to Wine Country

Our first task of the evening when we arrived at the winery of Vogt-Fehlinger was to unpack and settle into the "apartment" that would be our headquarters for the next five days.  The place consisted of a master bedroom with bath (Jo and Annette's room), a second bedroom with its own shower and sink, a kitchen, an additional bathroom (no shower), and a spacious living room.  It was the perfect setup.  If you click on the link and look at the graphic of the building grounds, our apartment is the upper level of the right-most branch of the building. 

Here we are in the living room.

After everyone was settled and we had caught up with Jo, who had been on a work trip, we headed out for the event of the evening:  a wine tasting.  Funnily enough, it was a wine tasting at another winery just up the road.  We happened to be in town for this special bi-annual event and Annette's nephew, who had connections, had been able to procure tickets for the four of us.

The Johanninger Winery, which is bigger than Vogt-Fehlinger's, had a very chic "open cellar" day.  They had more than twenty different kinds of wines to try -- red, white, sparkling wines, and liqueurs.  

Here are some of the whites.

Different kinds of liqueurs -- all very strong.

You could try as much or as little as you liked.  There were jugs for pouring out excess wine from your glass and bread to go along with the drink.

Jo, Annette, and nephew Stephen are talking with the man in charge of the winery - Markus Haas.

We were tickled to be at such an event.

Jo and Mike had similar likes and dislikes in terms of wine.  I guess I like things a little more sweet.

Here are two different red wines.  What's unique about these two in particular is that one (I don't recall which) is from the wine region on the north side of the Rhine River - Rheingau, while the other is from the region of the south side of the river - Rheinhessen.  Annette was very clear that drinking/enjoying wine from Rheingau was treachery. 

In addition to all of the wine, Johanninger's also had a wealth of different hors d'oeuvres in an adjoining room (actually their showroom for fancy outdoor Weber grills).  Everything smelled, looked, and tasted great.  They had someone manning a grill all evening making little pizzas.  There were lots of little fancy dishes.  Even tiny little desserts!

Here's a look at the spread when most of the food had already been snatched up by hungry wine-tasters.

Close up of a delicious pasta.

The Forelle, or trout dish was so yummy.  Along with the fish there were noodles and some sort of puree on top.

Amongst other sweets, they had mini crème brûlée.

A lovely pairing.

Mike's sitting down to his carpaccio dish and wine.

The goodness didn't end there.  They were also offering tours of their winery, cellars, and distillery.  Normally the tours are done in German, but they happened to have intern who was really excited to do a tour for English speakers.  Originally from Namibia (once German South-West Africa), he spoke English, German, Kaiserdeutsch (the dialect of German spoken in Namibia), and Afrikaans.   He had been studying and working at the winery for a few years.  Anyway, he was full of energy, useful since he had to do everything twice - once in German and once in English - and was extremely informative. 

This is where the grapes get crushed and fermented and then pressed again.  This is also where they add sugars or whatever else is necessary for the particular variety of wine to meet government standards.

Then we went down to the wine cellars where the wine ages for a long period of time.  The different barrels give the wine different qualities.

This particular room in the cellar has some barrels made of American oak.  The one at the end and in the center is one of the American oak, formed in the traditional European method of heating the wood over an open flame in order to shape it into a barrel (called barrique in German).  This particular barrel was also methodically burned on the inside, which is done to give the wine additional qualities.  He unstopped it so we could get a whiff of the wine inside.  The wine smell smokey and just like bacon!

We continued into the cellar where the bottles are kept.  There is a huge process that involves turning the bottles at slow intervals to get the yeast in the wine to the neck of the bottle.

From here, we went to see their distillery as well as their corking facility.  He explained the process of distilling liqueurs and the difficulties of corking sparkling wine, especially when you have small thumbs that can't close up the opening once its opened to let out the yeast.  

At this point, everyone but Mike and I had lost interest or had to leave because the tour was getting so long.  Really, he was incredibly thorough and very informative.  Since Mike and I had stuck with him for so long, he decided to show us the winery's "Schatzkeller" (treasure trove) of wines.  It was a special cellar that held a few select bottles from each year the winery had been open.  Some of these vintage wines are so old that the original labels have rotted away.  To be sure of what is in the shelves, they came up with an elaborate catalog system for the bottles, including pictures of how many bottles are where and so on. 

At the end, I took a picture of Mike and our wonderful guide (we never really caught his name -- it was something rather difficult to pronounce) near a bottle of wine from the year 1984.

It was a fantastic evening full of good food, wine, and company -- the perfect beginning to a week of traveling the Rhine Valley.

Road Trip!

The first time we talked about this trip was sometime in early November when we were first settling into life in Germany.  The Herth family, originally from "the south" or what is really western central Germany, wanted us to show us a different side of Germany.  Since they were already going down for a family confirmation towards the end of the Easter break, they decided to drive down early, bring us along, and introduce us to some of the most beautiful parts of the country.  Later, a contemporary christian music/gospel music choir workshop at a monastery was added to the beginning of the trip.  It was going to be a very interesting break indeed. Somehow the months passed and classes wrapped up for our long spring break -- a whole nineteen days!

Mike and I had to pack two weeks worth of clothes -- one week for visiting the Rhine Valley and one week for the Waldorf International Teachers Seminar in Kassel.  Somehow we managed to do it in a giant suitcase and two backpacks.

That Friday morning Annette picked us up at 8 am sharp, so there was no sleeping in on the first day of break.  None of the kids were too happy about that one, but it did mean that we'd eventually stop at a McDonald's for some breakfast -- "happy, happy, joy, joy" for them. 

During the five hour drive from Wolfsburg to Biebelsheim (the village where Annette grew up, very close to Bingen) we saw a few different things we weren't used to when we drive in our own cars in the states.  For example, because Jo works for Volkswagon he can get some pretty nice things for his car, and so this particular vehicle has a very fancy GPS system.

What surprised us was that it shows you the speed limit on the right-hand side!  We learned later that some of these GPS systems also will show you when you're coming up to a traffic camera that tickets speeders -- a feature that is legal in only some countries. 

Apparently, Germany is also adopting a sense of humor for the traffic and congestion on the Autobahn.  They've recently introduced a new series of signs for long stretches of construction...  Sadly, I missed the first two in the set, a red one followed by a pink one.  I'll leave it to your imagination as to what the faces look like. 

Hrmmm... not so pleased.

The corners are just barely up.

What a pleasant color to put on a construction sign!

Lookin' good!

Home free!

Anyway, the plan for day one of vacation was to drop off the kids at various relatives' homes, unwind and have some lunch at the river crossing in Bingen - where Annette went to school, and then make our way up to the Jakobsberg monastery for the first evening of our choir workshop.

Bingen is the southern end of the Rhine Gorge, or the Upper Middle Rhine Valley, in Germany.  This area between the towns Bingen and Koblenz is a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its geology, history, culture, and industry.  In Bingen, the Nahe River meets the Rhine River, creating a beautiful natural intersection.

The Nahe is the left side of the picture and empties into the Rhine on the right.  If you look closely, you can see two castles in the picture.

Here's a slightly closer view of the castle on the left side.

And the one on the right...

Some Rhine Valley geese enjoying the beautiful spring day.

We also enjoyed the sunshine.

This area of Germany is wine country.  Everyone and their neighbor (literally, Annette's family and everyone around them) has a small winery in their backyard.  All along the hills you see the harvests.  This particular picture is of the village across the Rhine from Bingen, Rüdesheim.  The statue at the top of the valley is the Niederwalddenkmal, a statue of Germania that was built to commemorate victory in the Franco-Prussian War at the end of the 1800's that unified Germany.

With this beautiful scenery around us, Annette, Mike and I walked along the shore until we found a little café for some lunch and coffee.  No good German can not sit outside for coffee on a nice day, so we had our season opener out in the fresh air.   Although it was bright and warm, the day was also a bit breezy.  One of the menus from a neighboring table blew away and down by the water.  To many diners' amusement, Mike hopped the fence to to retrieve it.

Eventually we made our way up some of the valleys to the Jakobsberg Monastery (or the Jakobsberg Priory) where our workshop was to be held. 

High atop the valley, the view from the monastery was beautiful.

While it still functions as a monastery, the grounds has also been converted into a conference center with hotel rooms and a small youth hostel.  We stayed in the building to the right in the middle floor where the building juts out.

The monastery also had its own vineyard and winery.  Their wine isn't half bad.  Mike and Annette posed in their grape display, which has examples of a huge variety of grapes from all over the world.

Annette is a regular attendee of their winter workshop and she was super excited to have Mike and me along for the spring session.  The workshop was lead by Thomas Gabriel, a known pianist, composer, and arranger of spiritual music in Germany.  The days were split up up with a few rehearsals in the morning (with lots of coffee breaks in between, of course), lunch, and more rehearsals in the evening.  Meals were actually pretty decent, and every evening people would gather in the basement for food, wine, and having a good time.

We sang a number of different things over the weekend.  Many were more typical four-part contemporary Christian worship pieces.  One of the most memorable songs was this arrangement of a popular pop song by German rock band Silbermond.  Kreiger des Lichts means "warrior of light".  The translation of the text is here. 

During one of our breaks from rehearsals, Mike and I walked down the valley towards the village of Ockenheim below.  Vineyards were everywhere.

It was a very peaceful place.

Along the way, we saw this house with its creative paint job.

The conclusion to our weekend of singing was performing a mass with a selection of songs that we had worked on in place of the more traditional liturgical music.  To accompany the contemporary music, the priest rapped part of the mass.  I'm not joking -- and it was kinda cool!  It was a nice way to wrap up the experience. 

A funky flower from our funky weekend.

After Sunday mass and one last lunch all together we drove back to Biebelsheim to meet up with Jo, who arrived by train Saturday, and to see the guest house we were sharing with the Herths at the Vogt-Fehlinger Winery and Vineyards.  Now the vacation festivities would really begin!

Happenings in Wolfsburg

As usual, life has been very busy for the two of us: school, traveling, playing in the city's music school orchestra, and just being normal 20-somethings.  This week is also going to be full since we have our second big concert of the school year.  The school choir, the project choir (led by one of our colleagues), and the orchestra will be performing Thursday evening.  It's hard to believe that we've made it this far!

I've started the first blog about our spring break tour of the Rhine Valley from March, but putting it all together is going to take a bit of time -- especially with all the other things going on.  So, hold tight -- the photos and stories are coming.  Instead, here's a little look at some of our encounters closer to home.

A couple Fridays ago was an absolutely gorgeous day.  We went downtown after school to pick up train tickets for an upcoming trip in May and ended up with some time between then and the start of our orchestra rehearsal.  We decided to walk up the city center and to the mall for an after-school treat in the sunshine.  As we made our way through the pedestrian area we ran into many of our students also out enjoying the sun.

We also saw these guys having some fun in the sun.

Apparently there are a few sets out all summer and you just need to obtain the key from city hall to play.

In the mall, Mike decided to get a very typical German snack -- a bratwurst with bread.  

For a country that eats so much bratwurst and other sausages, we cannot figure out for the life of us why they don't make bread that holds the entire sausage.  I guess hot dog buns are an "American" thing.  

Another thing we find interesting about Germany is the different kinds of stores they have in malls.  Sure, there are the typical clothing, books, and shoe stores.  And I do think it makes sense that there is a specialty wine store in the mall since coffee and tea places exist.  However, I think that grocery stores inside the mall is strange.  Weirder yet, though, is this butcher/meat counter at the place where we got Mike's bratwurst.

Around the corner from the Wurst-Basar is our favorite ice cream place in Wolfsburg.

 

  

There are lots of Italian ice cream shops (as well as restaurants) in Wolfsburg because of a large population of Italian immigrants.  Our favorite place for just a cone of soft, delicious ice cream, however, is the little kiosk in the mall.  The stuff is almost like gelato, but better.  It's just a touch heavier than gelato, but not at all like thick, rich American ice cream.  So good, and reasonably priced, too!

One last difference that we've noticed living here is how much Germans love their dogs.  Or more accurately, we've noticed that Germans take their dogs everywhere, because you see them everywhere.  On the bus, on the train, in the mall, at a café... you name it, they're there.  I only bring it up because I have a picture of a dog we've seen a few times on the street for Kim.  It's not from this particular Friday, but it works.  

Look!  A lion dog!

(Okay, so it's not that close, but it was weird sneaking a picture of someone's dog on the street.)