Since New Year’s eve is tomorrow, we decided we would go on a mission into the Rheingau wine-growing region and see what we could find to accompany dinner and hopefully pick up some nice bottles of sparkling wine (sekt) as well.
We did a bit of research online and found a place called Schönleber which is supposed to have very good sekt and wine. The weather was rather decent today and since my mom is in town anyway and never been to Germany, we figured this would be a nice little drive to take to show her a bit more of the area. And we actually only live about an hour from the Rheingau which is quite convenient and left us wondering why we don’t go there more often…
On our way to Schönleber, we also decided to stop at Kloster Eberbach just to show my mom the monastery grounds which are quite nice and perhaps make a small purchase if something really struck our fancy. The vineyard is very well known worldwide and tourist buses stop there often so their prices are not really great but we happened to find a decent red wine anyway which we will age a few years in hopes of reducing some of the tannin flavor. Unfortunately their wine staff was not really informed about what they’re selling which is really too bad but I guess it’s working out for them anyway. The monastery is currently under renovation and is much prettier in the summer anyway but it was still a nice visit.
From there we took some back roads to Oestrich-Winkel which is where Schönleber is located. We saw some really beautiful places along the way which we photographed. We even found another farmhouse for sale which was really beautiful but since we’ve taken on enough with our current farm, we didn’t really let ourselves look at it too long.
The name of this vineyard is actually quite amusing to us because it literally translates to “nice liver.” It turns out that this is a rather small family owned business and they also run a small hotel. Two brothers took over the vineyard when their parents became too old to continue with it and their parents now run the hotel.
We had a little trouble finding the place because the street name was not actually in our navigation system. Then we happened to find the hotel by accident and wandered in the right direction to stumble upon the wine store. One of the brothers let us in and let us taste a little bit of everything and we ended up bringing home a few cases of wine and sparkling wine home with us for tomorrow and for our new cellar.
After our stop there, we knew we needed to get some food in our stomachs since it’s almost a shame to not finish what was left in the glass after we tasted the various wines. So we went into Rüdesheim and had dinner at the hotel owned by a vineyard that we often purchase wine from. The food was better than we expected although our waiter seems to have left before we did and we had to wait a while to finally pay our bill.
We’ve never actually been in Rüdesheim during the winter and unfortunately weren’t there in time for the Christmas market although several of the stands were still set up. We were surprised to find that many of the stores were closed despite it being New Year’s eve and there were quite a few tourists about despite the not so perfect weather. During the summer the stores seem to rarely be closed and especially not on Saturday evenings…but it’s something to keep in mind for the future I guess.
It was raining a bit by the time we started our drive home. This is really a lovely region and the fachwerk houses that you can find off the beaten path are really amazing in some places. They are very ornately painted and it’s really incredible to see how the style of house can vary so much just a short distance away. There are also quite a few large manor homes and castles around here as well and if you drive the smaller roads around the Kloster Eberbach you will have a nice little tour.
We are already looking forward to our next visit and will work on making more room in the cellar for new additions…
