The Rhineland Palatinate’s Suedliche Weinstrasse wine district has long had a multi-faceted approach to its wine-making and wine tourism. From cooperatives to independent wine makers, from car routes to hiking and biking trails through the vineyards and towns where the production of wine takes place. These are not one-off trails. Rather they have been well-thought out, and are mutually supportive. One bicycle circuit I recently completed demonstrates these characteristics.
Trail Name: Fassboden 6
Trail Type: Short distance circuit; almost exclusively paved, the remainder hard-packed earth; well maintained, and fairly well marked.
Length: total: 18 kilometers/ @ 12 miles (1.5 hours)
Convenient to: Landau, Germany
Marking: Green and white square sign, with white bicycle, wine barrel and number “6” in white.
As wine tourism in Italy expands to include active options, there are more trails to hike or bike than ever before. I recently had another chance to visit Franciacorta. East of Milan, and just south of the sparkling clear waters of Lake Iseo, Franciacorta is an ideal location for a wine-themed biking vacation. The lake, in addition to being a beautiful, scenic backdrop, helps to moderate temperature; the hills shelter you and the vines from excessive wind; the wine villages are small, and charming. Best of all, it is quiet and laid-back: I encountered more people cycling than driving on some of the back roads.
Lemberger is an important varietal in Wuerttemberg. Its red wine, especially when mixed with Trollinger, is a popular local beverage. Not surprisingly, a circuit bicycle trail in the northwestern corner of the state is devoted to it, and this is the story of that trail.
The trail has history too. Technically starting in an area known as the Kraichgau (not to be confused with the smaller wine district known as Kraichgau in the Baden wine region, with which Wuerttemberg shares this area), it has been an agricultural area for a long, long time. Its name Kraichgau, is believed to derive from the Celtic word for loam. The loamy soils are good for vines. Additionally, this area, and indeed the trail itself, is dominated by the Heuchelberg, a massive ridge with multiple peaks. Its steep slopes provide good drainage, and maximize sunlight on the vines ranging up its southern exposures. Kleingartach, one of the wine villages on the slopes of the Heuchelberg, has presumably had vineyards ever since its donation to the Carolingian Lorsch Abbey in the eighth century. And this is the village where the trail began.
Trail Name: Lemberger Tour
Trail Type: Mid-distance bicycle circuit; either hard-packed or paved surface, well maintained, and distinctively marked in some places.
Length: Total: 43.5 kilometers/ 27 miles
Convenient to: Heilbronn, Germany
Marking: A small square sign with a stylized red grape bunch, and the words “Lemberger Tour” in blue letters on a white background.
At a wine tasting with both red and white wines, organizers usually end the event with the red wine selection. In my most recent bike tour, I began in white wine territory, (albeit one that produces a decent Pinot Noir as well), and finished the trail in an Alsatian village known for its reds. In between, the trail wound through other compact villages with colorful visuals, people and history, and vineyards, lots of vineyards.
So it was with this trail: wonderful, diverse wines, interesting villages, and a bit of history, all in one beautiful day. From the outset in Marlenheim, the trail revealed its rural tendencies. The first ten kilometers or so were along a beautifully maintained bicycle-only trail, set amidst green fields, woods, and past the backs of villages. After Molsheim (home to the first Grand Cru along the trail) and Dorlisheim, another four and a half kilometers of peaceful trail resumes. Be it through fields or vineyards, there were plenty of sights and views to admire. Alsatian countryside is idyllic, the villages beyond charming, and the trail highlighted the opportunities to appreciate these.
Trail Name: Veloroute du Vignoble d’Alsace
Trail Type: Long distance; almost exclusively paved, well maintained, but the route itself is not marked.
Length: Total: 138 kilometers / 85.75 miles
North segment (this post): 62 kilometers / 38.5 miles
South segment: 76 kilometers / 47.25 miles
Convenient to: Strasbourg, Colmar, Mulhouse
Marking: White, stylized grapes with a white bicycle and bicyclist superimposed on a green square background.
Continue reading Veloroute du Vignoble d’Alsace: Trail in a Nutshell
Edenkoben, a delightful little town in the heart of the Suedliche Weinstrasse wine district, is situated in a real garden of Eden in many respects. One of its original conventual foundations, Cloister Heilsbruck, did quite well from this bounteous land, and had a reputation even back then, for its vines. One of the warmer, sunnier spots in all of Germany, Edenkoben’s vineyards spread up to and around the town. It also has flowering fruit trees, to include beautiful almond trees with dreamy, cloud-like blossoms in the spring, and flowers abounding in fields, small gardens, and in the window boxes which adorn almost every house here.
That is why the Fassbodentour 5 bike trail was such a delight. A relatively short circuit trail, it provided ample opportunity to see all the above, and traverse charming little wine villages surrounding Edenkoben, on a trail that was mostly on dedicated bike path, and with only a few inclines along the way.
Trail Name: Fassbodentour 5 (“Cask-Land” tour 5)
Trail Type: Short distance bicycle circuit; almost exclusively paved, well maintained, but the route itself is not always marked.
Length: Total: 32 kilometers/20 miles
Convenient to: Landau, Germany
Marking: Square form with a green background and white designs of a cask and bicycle, displaying a “5”
