Specials

One of the year’s earliest wine festivals in Germany celebrates both wine and the blossoming of Mandel (almond) trees – a harbinger of spring and the start of a new growing season. The Mandelblütenfest takes place in March (date varies, depending on the outset of blossoming) in the Neustadt suburb of Gimmeldingen, midway along the Deutsche Weinstrasse (German Wine Road) ....

Although the Rheingau is best known for its Riesling wines, the Spätburgunder (Pinot Noir) grape has also been cultivated here for centuries, particularly in the red wine enclave Assmannshausen. The town is situated about 4.5 km (3 miles) downstream from Rüdesheim, where the Rhine makes a sweeping bend and resumes its south-north course.

This month’s famous vineyard site is located in the heart of the Nahe wine-growing region, in Wallhausen, a thousand-year-old wine village situated some 10 km (6 miles) northwest of Bad Kreuznach in the Gräfenbach Valley (a Bach is a stream or brook).

This month’s famous vineyard site is located in the heart of the Pfalz wine-growing region, in Königsbach, a wine village north of Neustadt an der Weinstrasse.

The western fringe of Germany’s largest wine-growing region, Rheinhessen, takes in the steep hillsides and forested summits of “Rheinhessen’s Switzerland” – a little-known circle of wine villages fanning out south of Wöllstein (southeast of Bad Kreuznach/Nahe).