As I wrote on Monday, I was at the Mosel last weekend. That region is well-known for their white wine. The winery tradition was founded by the ancient Romans, when they lived in that region, about 2000 years ago. You can still find several roman remains, like cemeteries, buildings, temples and fundaments.
The river Mosel is not the only one. Here, beside the river Rhine you can find several winery regions next to many tributary streams of river Rhine and the river Rhine itself. Every few kilometers you can find a village. Small hotels, guesthouses and apartments are waiting for tourists. You can also find a room at a winery or a farmhouse. Paved farm roads crossing the steep vineyards. These farm roads make it quite easy, to walk around. This area is also crossed by a long distance hiking trail, called Moselsteig.
There are several of these long distance hiking trails in Germany. They have in common, that they are quite challenging. But, all of them are crossing interesting landscapes. The Moselsteig is one of the youngest of these trails. Printed guides are available to make such a trails handy. They cut the whole track in pieces, each cope able in one day. They are well-marked along the trail and the guide gives some additional information about the region and the sights, landmarks and tourist features along the trail. So, you can easily make your room reservation in advance. You can even book organized tours, where the organizer cares for your luggage and transports it to the next destination, while you were hiking.
Beside restaurants, you can also find in these areas mentioned above wineries offering simple food and own made white wine. While each village has many wineries, not all of them offering food. And, not every winery is open each day. But, finding them is quite easy. They have a bunch of flowers or green twigs decorated with colorful bands at the house or in front of it, or a sign plate near the entrance. They are called Straußwirtschaft (= bouquet inn / pub) or Weinkeller (= wine cellar). You can also buy wine at the wineries, straight from the producer.
Sometimes the villages organize wine festivals. For these events several (many) wineries set up a booth next to each other, so that you can taste many different wines quite easy. Each wine has a different taste, depending of the age, weather during the year while growing the grapes, the winemaker, the producing style, the soil in the specific vineyard, the kind of grape and so on. Thus, tasting different wines is a good idea, for finding the one, you like most 🙂 You can also visit a winemaker for a tasting, when you want to buy, but have no idea which one.
Enjoy, but pay attention to the amount of alcohol enclosed in wine!
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