14Oct – Bernkastel, Germany

Sailing the Mosel River

Today’s journey wasn’t really about “special” or “historical” sites. It was more about “feeling” the journey. Sailing along the Mosel was a, how-do-you-say, calming experience. Going up to the sundeck of the ship to admire the views, I found myself doing laps around the deck as the valley walls of vineyards and rock formations drifted by. The sky was clear; the air was crisp but not cold; and the voyage was serene and soothing.

Once docked in Bernkastel, groups gathered and set out on a walking tour that was to culminate in a wine tasting. The town is paired with another, across the river, named Kues. As can be seen in the photos, it is a quaint-looking village composed of cobble-stone streets and plazas fronted by wood-framed houses. Whether these were genuine (read: pre-war) or reconstructed is difficult to know. However, visually, they fulfill the tourists’ desire for medieval enclaves free of the stench and vermin that characterized actual settlements of the period.

Bringing us back to today, there was a trio of completely inebriated young men (it was noon, BTW!) sitting outside of a pub, teasingly taunting passers-by. They had the audacity to put out a “Contributions, please” stein before them (Had they run out of money for beer?) and sang in the drunkest of voices to a cover of Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline to the amusement of uncomfortable tourists.

The narrative for our tour was, for me, rather forgettable. So there’s no retelling for Bernkastel lore. It really was more of a visual visit punctuated with a wine tasting that made the stop so worthwhile.

Scenes seen while out and about in Bernkastel

After our free time, we reconvened for a wine tasting at the Dr.’s winery. (The original winery merged with another resulting in the very long winery name of Dr. H. Thanisch-Erben Müller-Burggraef.) The winery tasting room was deep within the hillside vineyard in what had once been the primary wine production room of the original vineyard.

Wine Tasting at the Dr. H. Thanisch-Erben Müller-Burggraef weingut

We tried four rieslings, THE grape of the region, in order of ascending residual sugars:

• 2021 Bernkasteler Badstube Riesling Kabinett Trocken – the driest of the lot. Lecker!
• 2022 Riesling Dr. Thanisch
• 2022 Bernkasteler Riesling Kabinett Feinherb
• 2020 Berncasteler Doctor Riesling Kabinett

Doing a wine tasting with this group was enlightening. While there were some thoughtful questions ably answered by our seasoned hostess, there were a few irrelevant and kind of rude interruptions that only reminded me why other cultures can hate Americans sometimes. Our hostess, however, was unflappable.