The
Germans make
damn good wine.
I once attended a
wine tasting (weinprobe) in a
small town about thirty minutes from
Wiesbaden.
When
invited by my
collegues I was told we'd sample some wine, and
not to eat before, since the weinprobe would include dinner.
So I didn't eat
anything before going.
The
weinprobe was held on the grounds of a
family owned
vineyard, and had been in
business for a little over
seven hundred years.
Our
host that
evening was a
direct descendant, and quite
proud of his German
heritatge, his industrys
history and, of course, his
product.
We sampled about
twenty different types of wine that evening, all produced on this vineyard or another that they also owned several
kilometers north.
Each type of wine was introduced with a
funny story about it's
origin, some of which were quite involved. A few were a little
bawdy and they seemed to get funnier as the night wore on. Our host was
kind enough to
translate each
tale into
English.
And dinner? Eight different types of
sausages and three different kinds of
cheese
(wurst und kase) with a
little gerkin
pickle on the side of the
plate.
I don't eat that much
meat, but considering the entire evening lasted a little over
five hours, it's
no surprise that I didn't mind it at all that night!