Pardon the coarse headline but I couldn't help it. I'm talking about my GPS here in Germany. Well, it's a she, and she has a penchant for sending me down narrow country lanes and setting a cracking pace. Some non-wine background on the trip so far: After four hours' sleep, I spent Tuesday frantically making phone calls, packing, and looking for bits and pieces such as GPS map chips for my phone and plug adaptors for my laptop. I also had to go to the post office, meet a colleague to give her some wine samples, and make a delivery, so as usual I cut the trip to the airport a little fine but arrived about 80 minutes before departure.
Another rarity: I was under the 23kg limit for luggage (Virgin Atlantic). I had time to wolf down some lunch and wander to the gate, and was still making sales calls and chasing a disastrous delivery by Mainfreight (late and lots of breakages: way not to win a contract at the first attempt) while seated on the plane. I pulled off another one of my patented moves -- falling asleep before takeoff -- and woke ready to eat and watch movies. I had ordered gluten-free meals to see what they were like and to enjoy priority service (!), then I watched Changeling with Angelina Jolie and Slumdog Mill-a-nare (as the quiz show hosts says), then an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm and one of Flight of the Conchords. I dozed off and on even though the seat was unbelievable uncomfortable, and arrived in Hong Kong reasonable fresh for a 90-minute pitstop.
Back in the same seat, with cushion and blanked repositioned, I managed to sleep a lot between HK and London (flight time 12hr 54min), although waking often and watching another movie (Vicky Cristina Barcelona) and another episode of Flight of the Conchords. Arrived in London before 5am in good shape, but didn't muck around as I had to reclaim my bags and move from T3 to T2 (via internal walkways) for a Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt at 6.25am. I made it with ages to spare. Plane left late but it was a comfy leather seat at the back of the plane and I managed to power nap again, despite the dude next to me snoring something chronic. Oh joy, arrived in Frankfurt to see it was snowing and I hadn't packed much more than a pair of gloves and a light jacket in terms of suitable clothing.
Got picked up by a shuttle after standing outside in the 1C chill for 15 minutes, and headed out to the Thrifty depot, where they had a Merc A150 for me but haggled over the prebooked GPS. I knew it was a good deal -- $1800 for 34 days -- but I wasn't going to pay extra. All cleared, first destination programmed in very simply (start with the postcode) and away I went. I was soon on the motorway and decided the car's model number meant the speed it was meant to be driven, but then I decided 150km/h was a bit slow and I was late for my first tasting.
Despite the rain and snow still falling, I touched on 170 now and then, scurried around the back lanes and country roads and rolled into the village of Wiltingen about 1pm. After a comprehensive chat and tour with Van Volxem owner Roman Niewodniczanski, I rolled down the road to Forstmeister Geltz Zilliken a touch on 2hrs and 30 minutes late! Roman assured me everyone was used to overseas visitors being hours late and in fact it was mostly his fault ... we had a long, slow lunch at a local restaurant, took a drive through the vineyards, and he manages to get interrupted by work everywhere he goes.
So, a great tasting at FGZ, then dinner with winemaker Hanno Zilliken in the village of Saarburg before I hit the wall. I let them twist my arm for a nightcap of 1983 Auslese, then drove 100m up the road to settle into my hotel room. I slept from 10pm until close to 6.30am and figured my bodyclock had checked into European time in good style. Day two involved tastings at Dr Carl von Schubert's Maximin Grunhaus in Mertesdorf on the Ruwer, in Erden with Andreas Schmitges, and at Schloss Lieser with Thomas Haag, who is just a great guy and always so warm and friendly. Schubert showed me his 2008s from cask samples, then we toured the cellars and vineyards. One of the amazing things here is the constant battle against wild boars. They tear the place apart, and the Schuberts killed 100 of them during harvest, including 11 in a night by one shooter. The boars come out of the forest when there aren't any acorns around, and are so brazen that they don't take flight even when one of their pack is killed. They even charged the electric fences together and take the jolt to get through! We had lunch in the house, a lovely chicken and vegetable stew, with other vegetables and a 1990 Herrenberg Kabinett.
On to Erden, where I did a fairly rapid tasting with Andreas Schmitges, who is a very sharp thinker and always trying to make the most of what he has, which is some great vineyard holdings and now a dazzling tasting facility. The wines are very smart too... I got back onto schedule and charged into Lieser just a couple of minutes late for a tasting with Thomas Haag. The 08 rieslings were sensational, and were followed by more and more back vintages, starting with Thomas's first there in 1992.
It was 8pm (four hours later) when we finished the tasting and set off for another big meal in a small country restaurant. By the time I got back to my own car and hit the road to find my digs, which I had stupidly booked in a village 40 minutes away, it was about 10.15pm and I hadn't checked in yet. The GPS had been a hoot to this point -- it chooses back roads and shortcuts at every opportunity, and it gives an ETA that is hard to beat! I mean, I can be barrelling down a motorway and only take a minute or two off what it had predicted, so it obviously is tuned in to the speed limit everywhere (which is mostly 130 on the open road). But this time she left me stranded. "Your destination is here on the right" just didn't cut it when I couldn't find the hotel or any street numbers. With some prompting from a service station attendant I found it 400m away, looking nothing like the online brochure. It was 11.10pm and check-in was meant to be before 11pm. I rang the doorbell and could hear it ringing, but no one came. Back to the service station to ring the hotel but it went to an answering machine. I started to think about sleeping in the car, but the servo had another idea and got a hotelier out of bed to come and get me.
Turns out a lot of hotel staff don't even stay in the hotel. This place was locked up for the night but the boss gave me a key and left me to my own devices on the front desk computer! Had a good sleep and breakfast and then found out the room was 65 euros -- a bit of a slap after booking a room for 35e. I went back to that hotel to make sure they weren't going to charge me as a no-show, and picked up the key for that night in case the same was to happen again. Friday's schedule involved the 40-minute drive back to the middle Mosel main towns for a tasting in Graach at Weingut Willi Schaefer, and for the first time lunch wasn't offered afterwards. Suitably shocked, I decided I had time to visit Dirk Richter at Weingut Max Ferd Richter as he had promised me some 1964s from his cellar (my birth year).
I caught him outside the winery and he claimed no knowledge of my request, but he said he would have a look and take it to the trade show in Dusseldorf for me. I then picked up a gorgeous loaf of pumpernickel bread and a snail from a bakery and set off for my second appointment, at Reinhold Haart in Piesport. It was a fairly limited tasting as the 08s hadn't finished fermenting, but cellarmaster Johannes Haart found some other old goodies for us to sample, as well as producing a bottle of 1964 Piesporter Spaltese for me to take as a gift. Another vineyard tour (in freezing winds) ensued, then just as I was about to leave came the welcome invitation for another hearty dinner.
We went to a pricey restaurant with a great mini degustation and enjoyed a lovely local beer, bottles of 1998 Clerc Milon and 2007 Clusseruth Trittenheimer Apotheke Feinherb, as well as some more of the earlier samples. I hit the wall again and actually probably talked in my sleep, cos late in the dinner I caught myself mid-jibber and didn't know how to save the conversation! I struggled back out to the hotel and had another good night's sleep.
There was no rush to move on Saturday morning so I caught up on emails and then hit the road for Winningen. I'd previously only got there via a blast on the motorway, but the GPS decided I should take the scenic back road that follows the Mosel. It was tough work at times but I managed to knock a few minutes off its estimated arrival time. You can see in the picture here an amazing house that spanned the road -- I drove right through it at a decent speed!
An amazing sweet-wine tasting here, another big lunch (wild boar at last!), another vineyard tour (this time in the frighteningly steep vineyards of the lower Mosel) and I was off at high speed looking for a 90-minute trip to Dusseldorf. I tramped along at 180 for a while and was left in the dust of a BMW 630 at one point. I passed him back at the next set of roadworks ;-)
The GPS navigated me with one or two errors to my house for the next three days, and now GPS and car rest while I walk to the Prowein exhibition at the nearby Messeplatz.
That's all probably too much information ... will work on that! Next post might be on some of the amazing wines I have had so far, to save having to bring the notes back with me!
