Wine Tasting in the Vineyards

This past Sunday we went wine tasting at the Bürklin-Wolf winery. It was a planned excursion; we had a group of almost 30 people (most affiliated with BASF) and we went on a tour of the wine cellar that included 3 wine tastings and then we walked 5km through the vineyards while we tasted 3 more wines. We finished off the day with dinner at the oldest restaurant in the Pfalz, Gasthaus Zur Kanne.

Our guide, Susanne, had grown up working on her family's vineyard (everybody in the Pfalz seems to have a few hectares of vineyards) so she was quite knowledgeable about the wine making process. We started the tour in the pressing room where they press the grapes into juice every fall, then moved on to the cellar where they age some of their more expensive wines in big oak barrels:

There is also a room in the cellar called the treasure chamber, which is where they keep all of their really old wines. The oldest bottles were from 1893! We tried to get some pictures of them but it was hard to get them to come out as it was dark in there - and filled with spider webs! Not a fan of that.

After the cellar tour our walk began. We walked from Wachenheim to Deidesheim (so two towns south) through the vineyards. We stopped at some of the vineyards owned by Bürklin-Wolf and tasted the wine that was made from them.

Here by this tree, in the village of Forst, are the top-rated vineyards in the Pfalz. We tasted some of the wine made from them and it was amazing. Unfortunately the wine was well out of our price range at 53 euros per bottle. Glad we at least got to taste it!

The wine under that tree tastes so good because of the soil that is there. The vintners from 200+ years ago trekked volcanic soils from an extinct volcano into these vineyards and added them to the soil already there. I guess volcanic soil makes for good wine! There are also many layers of different types of soil in this area so the wine is able to pull in more minerals and more flavors from all the soils. And here's a picture of Forst ... you can see the church here, which opens up onto vineyards and even the priest here owns some vineyards!

Finally we ended up at dinner. It was a beautiful day and nice warm evening so we sat outside in the garden. The food was excellent but a little pricey. I guess you pay for the opportunity to experience the history of the restaurant.