Words by Neil Jenkins
On Saturday 4 September 1999, the ESOC Wine Society made a trip to the Rheingau region of Germany. Details of the places visited are presented in each of the links at the bottom. However, let's first summarise the trip in a nutshell ...
On a fine summer morning, we departed from Darmstadt by coach on route for the village of Kiedrich, home of the famous Robert Weil winery. Here we were given a tour of the winery and cellars by cellarmaster Dirk Würtz, before he presented us with four Weil wines for tasting.
From here, we went on to Schloss Vollrads at Oestrich-Winkel, where we were given lunch with six wines presented for tasting, presided over by ???.
Lunch at Schloss Vollrads was concluded with a walk through the local vineyards to Schloss Johannisberg, where we did not taste wines, but were able to stroll round and visit their shop (and pinch some grapes!).
Then it was time to get back on the bus and head for a equick walk around ???, where we had pleasant views over the Rhein, before making our way to the Hotel Krone in Assmannshausen, the part of the Rheingau famous for its production of red wines. Here we were given a tour of the Krone cellars and allowed to taste some of their own wines (mostly red).
Then it was time for some of us to go for a slap-up meal at a local restaurant, while the rest of us came back early to Darmstadt to start sleeping the day off!
Presented below are links to pages containing more in-depth information on the three key wineries visited. These pages contain both information on the wineries themselves, as gleaned from our respective hosts, and notes of the wines tasted. In the case of the tasting notes, it should be stressed that the views and opinions are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of the other Society members present on the trip. Notes from other people will be posted when available.
Rheingau Trip Reports |