The Karst Winery

Larry and Frankie flew out for a brief visit on their way to visit some friends in northern Germany. So, naturally, we went wine tasting. Wineries here give you a solid 1.5-hour wine tasting with up to 15-20 wines plus a tour of the cellar if you want it (we didn't request it). So it's a fun activity. We chose to go tasting at the Karst Weingut, which we thought we liked when we tasted their wines at the Weinbergnacht. However since we tasted their wines towards the end of the Weinbergnacht we weren't 100% sure we really liked them so we had to go and find out for real (i.e., when we were sober). Here's the restaurant and Weingut right next to each other:





Martin and Frankie, ready to go:



We were actually at this tasting with a group of 7 Germans who were really nice. Since they weren't dumping out their wines like we were (they didn't have to drive anywhere afterwards like we did) they were very happy and friendly by the end of the tasting! We took a big group photo at the end that they will hopefully email to us and I will post it here whenever I get it.





Our guide, Uli. He owns the winery; it's been handed down in his family for four generations. He spoke excellent English and was very friendly and informative and engaging.



Figuring out which wines to order. Don't let Frankie's look in this picture deceive you - she was very happy by the end of the tasting since she didn't dump out her wines like the rest of us:



Our haul - 26 bottles! Some we bought just to try again and the wines we really liked we bought a case of so we can enjoy them for awhile without having to worry about getting back to the Weingut to buy more. We really liked a few of their red wines - their Cabernet Sauvignon is the best one we've had from this region (though not the best we've ever had, just the best from the Pfalz ... so far). And their Merlot was really good which was a surprise.

The Paint Bar

Last week I was in Boston for work and while I was there I had a fun evening with my friend Lori at The Paint Bar in Newtonville (which is in western Boston). The Paint Bar is a place where you can go and paint and it of course has a bar so you can also enjoy beer or wine while you're there. You have to sign up for a particular painting and class and once there you are led through the steps to make the painting for that evening by a teacher who is rather energetic and bubbly. It's a good time. Here are my paints, glass of wine, and blank slate for the evening:



A picture of the little bar. You can see the flower picture in the foreground on the easel - that's our goal for the evening. You can also see all the paintings on the wall in the background - those are all the different options that they offer classes for.



The rest of the class:



Our works in progress:



My finished product, complete with mess of paints:



Our final paintings. Can't wait to do it again!

Weinbergnacht

Last night in Bad Dürkheim there was an event where all the wineries from town set up booths out in the vineyards along with spotlights and lasers and people could walk through the vineyards in the evening, taste wines, and enjoy some light shows. It was a good time. We went with several of our American friends from the area. Tickets cost 15 euros each and that got you a tasting glass and 15 100ml tastes - the equivalent of two bottles of wine! Not to mention a good amount of exercise to walk around to all 24 wine booths. In the dark no less which was sometimes pretty interesting. However this was actually a brilliant way to allow people to taste some wine from every winery in town. It was really helpful to those of us who would like to get to know the wines from all the wineries but don't have time to get to a full tasting at all of them.

Here we are starting out the evening. I already had to remove my scarf as we had just walked up a little hill and I was hot. It was 60 degrees and sunny when we started out but once the sun went down it became quite cold:



Some of the views from the first booths, while it was still light out:









Our little group, at another booth down the trail a bit:



Some more booths. One of these had food. Yes, thankfully, there were food booths too! Offering the usual German fare of bratwurst, saumagen, pretzels, and crepes ... we were glad there were food booths regardless of what they were offering.



The ladies, all from NY:



Pretty sunset.



Some of the lasers and lights. It was hard to get pictures of all the lasers and spotlights with our iphones but there were laser shows taking place on the hills and in the air throughout the night. Also, all of the ruins and castles and monuments were lit up with different colors which was neat.







Having some fun with a light wall:



Things we will remember for next year: #1 bring some flashlights or headlamps and #2 get a necklace to hold our wine glasses for us - some of the locals were just walking around with their glasses hanging from a necklace sort of contraption and it seemed like a good idea as our hands got really cold carrying our glasses all night long.

Skiing in Austria

This past weekend we spent 3 days skiing at Brandnertal, which is in western Austria. We were hoping to find some sunshine because Germany had started to be way too depressing. Here's what our drive through Germany to get to Austria looked like:



We ended up randomly finding a really nice hotel (Hotel Walliserhof, we highly recommend it)! We got a deal that included 3 nights in a spacious hotel room, a 6-course dinner every night, breakfast, lunch, an afternoon snack, a half-hour massage, and 2 days of lift tickets each. Here's a shot of my main course the first night, some white fish on top of some friend gnocchi. Yum.



Here I am taking a little break on the slopes:



Here's a helicopter airlifting somebody to a hospital. I think this is just how the ski patrol worked here - if you got too injured to make it down the slopes on your own the helicopter would come land right next to you and take you to the hospital! We saw it happen several times. I think health insurance here might cover this sort of thing. Kind of crazy.



These crystals formed in the bottom of our prosecco glasses one night! We asked our waiter about them and he was like, oh yeah, those are called wine stones. I guess they happen fairly regularly around here, I think in sparkling wine. They're potassium tartrate. I don't really know much else about them but they formed very quickly - we just looked at our glasses and there they were when they hadn't been there a few minutes before!



Here are some nice scenic pictures taken from various areas of the Brandnertal ski area:









Martin enjoying the view:



Stopping for lunch in the sunshine. Another couple from Bad Dürkheim came with us for the weekend so they took this picture for us. They are also from America and the husband also works for BASF and they are around our age so we became fast friends.



Another break, this time in the shade waiting for our sweat to dry. It was really warm!



Enjoying the sunshine:







More chairs, these are at a restaurant. I sat in these for a little while too.