Not just beer…
admin December 9th, 2006
When one thinks about Austria or Germany immediately, by association, one thinks about beer and the historic breweries in Monaco, antique, immense and noisy. After all, who could forget the special taste of Rauchbier, the smoked beer, a specialty of the beautiful German city Bamberg?
It’s not common to think that these countries are also producers of great wine. And there is an existing tradition already seen by the Romans to cultivate their vines in Germany, along the banks of the Rhine River.
Between Mainz and Koblenz along its banks the river shows a charming landscape made up of rows of perfectly lined vineyards and in the heart of the Black Forest the woods also give space to hills planted with vineyards.
In Gegenbach, for example, I remember tasting an excellent Riesling and I bought different bottles of wild berry wine. My main reason for buying the wine was to give them as gifts to friends and relatives but by the time I got home the bottles were empty! Even in Austria where the majority of wine is produced in the Danube river basin, the vines were brought from the Romans legionaries. The wines produced are mostly light and a true passion of the Austrians is that of the new wines, not fermented.
The Schilcher is very appreciated also; a half-dry wine from the Lower Styria and excellent red and white wines come from the Burgenland region. A sweet wine, truly special, typical of these countries is made using grapes harvested in the middle of winter. The bunch, half dehydrated, is harvested before daybreak, the watery part is thrown away and the few drops are conserved as concentrated juice. After a long period of natural fermentation and various stages, a year and a half after the harvest the Ice wine is ready, a desert wine, also called moon wine.
A little while ago in Italy this particular type of wine production was also tried in Piedmont. The only thing left to do is to go and taste it.
A little while ago I visited the “Casoncello Gardens”. It’s in the hills of Bologna, near Loiano, in the Scascoli resort. As soon as I arrived I felt like Alice in wonderland while crossing a small wooden gate and I entered into the garden full of colors and scents, magical nooks and crannies and an enchanted atmosphere. I like it because there aren’t large spaces, only little paths and one little area after the other, every one of them characterized by plants, even rare ones, and unique chromatic arrangements. There’s also a small vegetable garden that was so well taken care of and charming that even it seemed like a small garden. It’s a fascinating place full of inspiration, and its history is also fascinating, and in particular it’s creator: Gabriella. While she acts as a tour guide for the visitors to her village she happily tells of how her adventure began: of how about twenty years ago she decided to renovate the family farm because of an eviction lawsuit. Attached to the farm is a bit of land and that’s how her passion for gardening began and how, little by little, her small but grand jewel took shape. Gabriella has described her experience in a book: I giardini nati nel vento (Gardens Born in the Wind)”, a fountain of inspiration for whoever is passionate about gardening.