An eclectic mix of wines from Germany’s past, present and perhaps its future. Above, vineyards in Bingen, courtesy Weingut Riffel.
As I clear my desk, palate and mind in advance of the tasting marathon that is the annual VDP Grosses Gewächs premiere followed almost immediately by Austria’s Single Vineyard Summit, I find myself thinking about intersections and context, about the things that break and the things that bind.
From the top of the Kaiser-Friedrich tower on the western edge of Rheinhessen’s Rochusberg in the town of Bingen, there is just such an intersection. The basalt tower named for the...