Living in Kasel and the middle of German Riesling country, A and I have become quite the white wine snobs. Before living here, we only drank red. Oh how things change. Kasel itself has almost 10 wineries. The surrounding area, Ruwer, has many more. My favorite however, and I am slightly bias, is the Scherf Vineyard.
. It is one street over, run by the nicest family, the Scherfs. Svenja, their youngest daughter, has spent a great deal of time at our house since we've lived here and she watches the dogs when we travel. I walk over about once a week to buy our supply for that week. Remember, riesling is the German water. Never, have a I had a bad bottle, but I typically buy the same two wines. Since we have company these 2 weeks, I decided a formal wine tasting at the Scherfs would be fun and we could try some of the other wines!
Well, I have been to my fair share of wine tastings and this, hands down, was the BEST, and NOT because I just love the Scherfs! Ehrard, Svenja's dad, the wine maker, sat down and drank every glass with us. Explained every glass to us. Answered ALL the millions of questions we asked. Explained all the processes of wine making for a small wine maker (27,000 bottles/year) like himself. We have been to big tastings and heard how they make the wine, but a small wine maker is different and it was so interesting to learn about. The awesome bread, crackers, fruit, and cheese platter prepared by Frau Scherf of course helped!
We were originallly planning on tasting 6... then 10.. and in the end, we tasted 15. Is that because we asked for 15? No. It was because Herr Scherf was having fun and kept wanting us to try more! And we were having just as much fun, so we of course complied! At the end of the night, (6 hours later) he shared how much he really appreciates when people care about the process, ask questions, etc, which is exactly how our night went. We also got to hear about his old army days, in the 1950s, as a tank driver! I thought Germans couldn't tell jokes, but I was wrong! The whole gang purchased wine from him as well, so I think the evening paid for him :)
After, we planned on going to another tasting down the hill, but because our time ran over with the Scherfs, we skipped it and just had dinner instead. 9 of us headed to Paulinerhof and after all that cheese, really didn't need dinner, but ate anyways of course! To top it all off, we headed back to our place, had birthday brownies for Shannon, played games all night, and had a big sleepover at our house.. you know, the typical Rapalje weekend (when we aren't traveling, that is!).
Gosh, thinking about how much fun we had just makes me even more sad to move. Can't wait til we move back to Germany!!
Us with Ehrard, the MAN!
The most amazing cheese platter prepped by Frau Scherf. Gosh, I will really miss the awesome and affordable cheese Europe has to offer.
Our neighbors.. and dinner mates many nights of the week.
2 of my 3 favorite Germans! Jill and Svenja. Svenja helped with the tasting. She served the wine and helped her Dad with English when he got stuck. After, we went down the hill to this awesome restaurant in Kasel, Pauliner Hof, for dinner and more wine. The girls came with us! What a fun, fun night!
