Day three: Land of the giants

I'll post briefly now and expand later.

After waking at 4am and pottering around for hours we had breakfast then went to Zilliken to pick up some goodies for Gav and David Clark in Burgundy. Dorothee served us a 1983 Rausch auslese that had been open for days but still looked as fresh as a daisy. And she is comparing 2009 to 1983 ...

Raced along the river past some precarious vineyards to Van Volxem in Wiltingen. Cellarmaster Dominic entertained us while Roman was delayed on a flight. We had a quick look at the bubbling cellars (dry wines on a long slow ferment), then looked at the exposed Scharzhofberger vineyard and some of the other sites overlooking the Saar.

Went back to the house and started tasting some 08s, including fabulous grosse gewaches -- Volz and Gottesfuss. Then Roman arrived, gave us a history lesson about riesling fetching higher prices than top Bordeaux around 1900, and served up three 2009s. Very smart.

I drove on to Erden while Gav and Gen set sail for Burgundy. I arrived at the Schmitges lodging to an empty house but thankfully they turned up, surprised to see me a day early, and we settled in for the evening.