tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13928417.post6424355447475258830..comments2024-03-25T17:46:30.402-05:00Comments on 'Village Life in Kreis Saarburg, Germany': Life in a Wine VillageKathy, the Single-minded Offshoothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07887312817720774699noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13928417.post-8159512773795103062017-07-30T21:05:14.214-05:002017-07-30T21:05:14.214-05:00Great description of your day in the wine village,...Great description of your day in the wine village, Tom. I hope you somehow, sometime got to taste that wine (from the wooden barrel, of course)!Kathy, the Single-minded Offshoothttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07887312817720774699noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13928417.post-23024452448371207962017-07-29T12:06:03.698-05:002017-07-29T12:06:03.698-05:00When I was stationed at Hahn Air Force Base 1977-1...When I was stationed at Hahn Air Force Base 1977-1980, I helped in the grape harvest of two seasons. One of my buddies lived in Zell/Mosel, and his landlord was also a vintner. He recruited several American airmen and officers for the harvest, and we drove together early on Saturday morning to Zell. <br /><br />It was October or November, the days were already chilly in the Hunsrück where Hahn AFB is home. When we arrived in Zell around 6 a.m., the steep hills were shrouded in heavy fog. You couldn't see up the slopes beyond 4 rows of grapes. Even the town seemed more like Brigadoon than a bustling Mosel River town. <br /><br />The vintner's family had made fresh, strong coffee served with steamed milk in heavy ceramic pitchers, and they had bought at the local bakery a huge variety of rolls, croissants, and what we call Danish pastries.<br /><br />After this Fruhstück, we climbed the hillside behind a little tractor that pulled a large open wagon. Up at the top of the slopes, we each pulled a long plastic bucket from the wagon and hooked our arms into loops, backpack style. The bucket reached down to below the hips, and its opening was just at the top of the head.<br /><br />I was assigned the upper side of a row of vines, and a much taller friend was assigned the lower side of the same row. A team above us worked the top row of vines, and two teams below us worked along like us. Across the steep roadway, other teams worked vines in the opposite direction.<br /><br />We spent the morning clipping large bunches of Riesling from the vines, dropping each one overhead into the bucket. The bunches were well-ripened, the green grapes had just begun to turn brown, and fine webs of mold clung to the interior of each bunch. Each vine held 20 to 30 bunches, and the bucket was filled after 3 or 4 vines. As each bucket filled, a worker lifted it off my back, and another worker provided an empty bucket to fill again. While my friend and I clipped more harvest, the first worker carried the bucket to the wagon an emptied it.<br /><br />Each row of vines was about a quarter mile long, and the vines were planted about 8 feet apart: all the branches could receive sun, splayed out on the heavy wire, but no space between the vines was left empty. My tall friend and I completed harvesting our row in an hour, and then we moved down to start on another row, returning slowly to the tractor and its wagon.<br /><br />By 10 or 11 a.m., the fog had burned off, and the slowly moving Mosel was revealed in a shimmer. All along the slopes, other teams of harvest crews worked the vines. Where the harvest was not yet done, the slopes were mottled with green, yellow, red from the undisturbed vines. Above, the slopes were blue gray from the slate that the harvest had revealed.<br /><br />We gathered at the vintner's home for a happy mid-day dinner and returned to the slopes for the afternoon. During the lunch break, we saw other workers at the wine press. The vat was 6 feet in diameter and nearly 8 feet tall. A filled wagon of grapes would fill the press 3 or 4 times, and large barrels, some wooden and some heavy plastic, stood ready to be filled with juice. The vintner told us the wood barrels were for his use, the plastic barrels to be sent to a commercial winemaker who specialized in low-cost bottles of Zeller Schwartze Katz—for export to the U.S.Tom Ghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13156208787667044304noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13928417.post-80575813451799203172008-03-17T16:46:00.000-05:002008-03-17T16:46:00.000-05:00Irsch fountain with murals honoring its wine herit...Irsch fountain with murals honoring its wine heritage<BR/>......<BR/><BR/>i remember,when we visited Oma Telly, my kids always here to play the water.....Vk-mahalkaayohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07890049197947398643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13928417.post-41526489398044544912007-06-06T01:17:00.000-05:002007-06-06T01:17:00.000-05:00Kathy, Rivaner or Müller Thurgau (named after Mist...Kathy, <BR/>Rivaner or Müller Thurgau (named after Mister Hermann Müller in Thurgaus/Switzerland who created this new sort in 1882) is the same while Silvaner is an own sort, maybe coming from southeast-Europe, much older than Rivaner. There are dozens other synonyms for Silvaner in french and german but it is not the same as Rivaner. Silvaner is rare along the Mosel and Saar. It is mostly grown in Franken (near Würzburg/Bavaria) or Rheinhessen. Elbling is said to be the oldest type of wine grapes in Europe. There are also dozens of synonyms in french and german. In old times, Elbling was often grown for home use (Haustrunk), while the more expensive Riesling was sold. By the way: In Piesport/Mosel you can see the reproduction of a huge grape press used by the romans. Archaeologists dug it out some years ago. <BR/>Regards, <BR/>ErnstErnsthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15152773637228266683noreply@blogger.com