Almond Blossom Festival on the Wine Road

Didn’t I tell you there would be another Weinfest an der Deutsche Weinstraße (on the German Wine Road) this past weekend?  I was there, along with a few hundred other thirsty visitors, with the juice of the grape on our minds, but camaraderie in our souls.

This one, as promised, celebrated the blooming of the almond trees that line the main road and most of the surrounding streets.  I’m telling you, one of the things I love about Germany is the way even the smallest villages celebrate every season and every harvest.  Pumpkins.  Chestnuts.  Strawberries. Asparagus. New wine. Beer. Plus, there are the religious holidays, which are more rigorously celebrated than we’re used to in the U.S.  Just when you think you know all the saints, another pops up and the stores close and garbage pickup comes a couple of days earlier than you’d planned.  But, let’s get back on topic.  Almond blossoms.

Pumpkins?  http://stroudallover.blogspot.de/2012/10/autumns-not-just-for-kids-pumpkin-soup.html

Potatoes and Chestnuts?  http://stroudallover.blogspot.de/2013/10/potatoes-and-chestnuts-hey-fest-is-fest.html

Ok, so almond blossoms and beer and wine aren’t harvested, but they definitely represent a change in the seasons.  Hey, nature doesn’t lie.  When the almond trees start to bloom, you know spring is here.

In a few weeks, the forests’ budding branches will cast a faint green velvet glow over the awakening trees and the almost infinite rows of vines will be covered in light green finery.  Even now the days grow longer and Germany’s days glow with lingering glimpses of sunshine.

The blooms are on their way!

But, back to almond blossoms and the Almond Blossom Fest, held every year in the tiny town of Gimmeldingen, near Neustadt on the Germany Wine Road.  You have to keep your eyes and ears peeled to catch the date.  Nature not only doesn’t lie, but it keeps its own timetable.  The almond blooms burst out when they will, so the festival is announced on short notice.  This year we got about a ten-day call.

What do you expect to find at an almond blossom festival?  No trick questions.  Small, beautifully trees, adorned in pink blossoms. Beer.  Wine. Wurst.  Vendors with exquisite temptations. 

But, no matter what you expect, also expect surprises.  At this fest I saw something I hadn’t seen is a while:  roasting salmon on cedar planks around open wood fires.  You don’t want to know how delicious fire seared salmon is, it’ll only disturb your sleep and make you wake up hungry.  Add fresh rolls and dilled mayo….sorry, I can’t go on.  It’ll disturb my sleep, too.

Let’s move on to the handmade wares. As I have often said, the vendors at German fests are first class.  The almond blossom affair was no exception.  Gabi Müller-Seng makes jewelry.  Fine, inventive jewelry, with every piece uniquely crafted.  She is a native to the Wine Road, with a shop in Neustadt.  I wouldn’t be so crassly commercial, but I really have seen nothing like the jewelry she makes.  Gold and silver, curved and hammered into small sculptures you’ll be eager to wear on your fingers, or wrists, or around your neck…or pinned to your jacket.

Now to the heart of the matter.  I didn’t come for jewelry, or even almond blossoms.  I came for indescribably delicious wine, roasted wurst , whose redolent smoke you whiff for a hundred yards before you see it, and even more importantly, the crowds of happy people that are more than willing to drink with you and smile and use their faltering English, while you stumble and spit out your torn, rag tag German.

A long time ago, when my sons were young and we ripped them away from their covey of close friends and schoolboy enterprises and took them across vast oceans, they were more than a little sad.  They trusted us, but the loss, combined with facing the unknown, made their sleep a toss and turn affair.  When we’d settled in to our new home, I asked them what they missed about the place we had come from. They gave me names of friends and things that had happened, soccer games won or lost, the freedom of the last day of school, the summer days spent wandering the woods, or fishing in the lake.  Never once did they mention a ‘thing,’ a gift, a toy.

And that’s what the almond blossom fest was really all about.  Sitting next to friendly people, most of whom were Germans, welcoming you with open arms to share some wine and conversation, talk about the weather, comment on the salmon, or pickles, and make you feel at home.

More and more fests coming up!  Wine and more.  You’ve heard of Christmas markets.  What about Easter markets!  Hey, put some Google in your life!  Find the fests!  Mark your calendar!  Meet the people who will make your stay in Germany linger in the corners of your heart forever!

Buying Wine the German Way - Small Vintners, Big Wines

Drop in and taste a few wines...

While you're at it, check out the warehouse

..Don't forget the vineyard...

Karl Dennhardt packs up your purchases

...While Frau Dennhardt adds up the bill...

No matter which wines you pick, they're going to be fabulous.

I admit having a fondness for the fermented grape.  Lived in Spain, traveled in France, toured the Napa Valley, blah, blah, blah.  I don’t mean the wines were blah, far from it.  I denigrate no wine before it’s time.  Wherever you are with that sweet someone, whether it’s a sun blinded day, or a drizzling time for snuggles, even if you have a two dollar, screw cap from Jimmy Jon’s Bottle Shop and Shoe Repair, it’s going to be a great wine. Warms your heart just thinking about those bygone days, doesn’t it.

In Germany, you can capture them again. Easily.  The big vineyards in the States have polished presentations and showcase tasting rooms, expansive enough to quench the thirst of busloads of tourists.  But also rather impersonal.  Not knocking that either.  Business is business. 

But, in Germany, the big news is the little news.  Up and down the German Weinstraße, there are hundreds of small-scale weinguts, family businesses, with their own hand-tended vineyards, careful wine production, and sales right out of the family homestead.  It’s fun to taste, but even more fun to get to know a little bit about the people who make the wine and sell it and care about it.

I know what you’re thinking.  If there are hundreds of weinguts, how do you go about picking one?  You have some choices.  Just go from one to another, sipping until you can’t remember your wife’s name, or where she left her purse.  Another, slightly less obnoxious method is to order wine in a restaurant and ask the waitress for the name and address of the weingut.  If she also includes her phone number, you’re a very lucky man.  A third way is to simply go to a friend’s house, drink his wine and before he throws your ass out, ask where he got it.  A fourth and probably the most fun you’ll have being clueless, is to get a map of the Weinstrße and plan a few tasting weekends.

In spring through fall, perhaps the best way is to look for winefests.  Chances are great that any wine you taste at a winefest is a local wine….as in down the street.

Don’t like any of those suggestions?  Go pop a top on a Bud and hunch down in front of the tellie for an afternoon of ‘Who Wants to Be A Loser?’

As it happens, we found a wine we liked at a restaurant.  Asked the waitress.  Walked out with a scrap of paper and all the info.  Now comes the best part: We drove there and all our dreams of a romantic wine tasting came true.  I’m using romantic in the way the word was intended. Enjoying.  Comparing.  Chatting about tastes and smells. Meeting lovely people in a cozy atmosphere that made you never want to leave.  In short, sharing a lovely afternoon with your sweet someone, with no worries, and no cares.

Dennhardt winery sits unobtrusively on a side street in Mußbach, a suburb of Neustadt.  Behind the house is a rather large warehouse, that stores wine production machinery, a small tasting room, and over 100,000 bottles of delicious red, white, and rosé wines.  Behind the warehouse stretch acres and acres of manicured vineyards.  The winery is run by Karl Dennhardt and his wife, both in their 80’s, and anything but old.  Cheery, enthusiastic to the point of exuberance, they invited us into the small tasting room and sat with us as we sampled six or seven of the more than fifteen different wines they produce.  Frau Dennhardt shared stories from her childhood to the present.  Neither she nor her husband speak English, but that didn’t seem to slow anyone down.

I forgot to mention, there was also a party going on.  The Dennhardts had a dozen or more friends in their backyard, eating, drinking, and enjoying themselves.  Frau Dennhart told us she’d made a five-kilo bowl of potato salad.  Out behind the warehouse, big chunks of skewered pork roasted over a wood fire and graced us with a heavenly, smokey aroma.

I asked Karl Dennhardt if it was really ok for us to taste right then.  He told me words to the effect of: hey, at least you’re buying wine.  Those folks out there are eating and drinking for free!  He wasn’t wrong about the buying part.  After a leisurely hour, we came home with seventy bottles.  Better than that, we came home with smiles and memories.

Weingut Karl Dennhardt

Brelten Weg 23a

67435 Neustadt-Mußbach

tele:  0632168367