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Published: October 5th 2014
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Day 17: Cochem/Ernst
1
st October 2014
After yesterday effort we thought we would take it a bit easy. Our usual breakfast has consisted of fresh bread rolls delivered by the lady who owned the accommodation with a variety of cheeses, sliced meats, tomatoes, jam and coffee and so we sat and had a leisurely brekky then got ourselves and Schmidt ready and we drove in to Cochem. The first thing we did was take a chair lift (yep I am facing my fears and winning) up this nice little mountain side where there is this great look out over the town and the village. It was lovely. We could have walked the 2.5K down but we all felt a bit sore from yesterday and so opted for the return trip on the chair lift. One thing I have to say for the Germans is that they are a hardy and energetic race. It seems that it doesn’t matter how old you are you still walk and not just simple walks I’m talking uneven rocky footpaths and up and down all over the place. The falls rick is enormous but they just get on with it
and do it with ease.
Frank and Louis had their first sausage and beer for the day.
After this we walked across the bridge to go to a mustard factory do a tour there. The tour was in German but Mandy and Louis were able to translate for us. In spite of the fact that I didn’t understand much it was really interesting. At one point he opened us the barrel that they use to grind the mustard and the fumes were really overpowering and literally burnt my eyes. The poor bastards that did this for a job in the olden day must have had really appalling working conditions.
Its funny how people can look like their jobs – the tour guide honestly had a slight mustardy tinge to his skin, not quite jaundiced but mustardy never the less. The range of mustards was broad and ranged from sweet to hot to traditional. All of us had a sausage with our choice of mustard.
After the mustard factory we wandered through the town which was a bit disappointing. The buildings are old and the streets lovely but all
the shops were cheap and nasty touristy shops and so not very interesting for browsing. We bought some yummy cakes to have with our sweet wine for dessert. We also brought some salmon and salad stuff for dinner as we preferred to eat in rather than out. Another reason to choose to eat at home was that the guy who owned the accommodation was also a local winemaker and he was going to hold a tasting in his cellar door (which was just below our apartment) at 8pm.
While we were away there had been a shower of rain and my clothes that would have been dry on this beautiful day were sopping wet. I had to ask the owner of the accommodation (the winemakers wife) if I could put them in her dryer and she was OK with that.
Dinner was simple and relaxed.
The wine tasting was held in the cellar door just below our backdoor. There was the 4 of us plus two other couples. The winemaker Andrae Goebel didn’t speak English but he was sympathetic to the fact that we didn’t and he enabled time for Mandy
and Louis to translate for us. He spoke a lot about how he was harvesting now and that there was some problems with the weather as it was unusually warm. Good for us – bad for him ….. He told us that he was third generation vingeron and winemaker and that his daughter was going to study winemaking next year and had done a vintage in New Zealand. He was happy to share his wines with us and they were great.
The dominant wine of the Rhine Valley is Riesling accounting for around 80% of production. The abundance of slate in the soil together with near perfect weather conditions account for the dominance of the Riesling grape.
The German Riesling is quite distinct from those produced elsewhere. The Rhine Valley (Rheingau) is one of the 13 recognised wine districts in Germany and it is known more for the quality of the wines produced than for the quantity. It has the oldest wine-growing tradition in Germany. It is known that the Romans planted vines here and that for centuries wine drinking has been part of everyday culture.
He took us to his winery, which was underneath the
garage of his house. It was professional and pristine clean. Then we went one level down into his musty and dark cellar. It was so dank you couldn’t store very much down there. Following that we went back to the cellar door for a tasting. And Andrae’s wines were lovely to drink. We sampled 8 wines – trockans, half trockens and sweet whites and none of them were clangers.
The owner of the accommodation brought my dry clothes out in a basket . We wandered home and went to bed excited about Holland and Sander and his family.
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