out of season 2

Since I can't find a way to format the layout of pictures in Blogger (always get slapped up on the top), my carefully-conceived layouts get bloggered. I give up, one post per picture.

Mosel vine, showing evidence of a moister climate than is usual for winegrowing regions. I expect a stony feel to the wine. No country for cotton socks, this.

As it turned out, everything was still closed until Easter weekend. Eventually found a place to taste wine in Zell/Mosel, but they had run out of trocken wines. All the sweet ones tasted identical to me. I could not distinguish any character, only sweetness. At dinner in Reil, I'd had a sweet Riesling, but it had lots more going on than just sweetness, rather a delicious gulp in fact. I figured I'd get a Beerenauslese just for the fun of it, but they'd run out of that too and I had to settle for a Riesling Eiswein.

In the hotel, I was going to drink the half-bottle of white in the minibar, but it turned out to be French. According to mine hostess, there are only 3 vineyards on the whole Mosel that produce half-bottles: they bottle in late April, so by March there's usually none available. Extraordinary.