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Monthly Archives: July 2016
Finish with a Red
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.
Wine Notes: Alsatian Red Wine
What I Learned
Alsace wines are varietal wines (excepting the Edelzwickers), and of these, only one is a red wine. That wine is from the Pinot Noir varietal. Alsatian Pinot Noir wines are not generally well known. Alsatian Pinot Noir wines tend to be lighter, but very fruit-forward Pinot Noir wines. They are, of course, different from Burgundian Pinot Noir wines, from which tradition they derive. Early in the 12th century monks from Burgundy headed into Alsace, bringing vine plantings with them. When they arrived around Mont Sainte Odile (site of an early Merovingian foundation), they successfully transplanted their vines on the lower, sunny slopes.
Veloroute du Vignoble d’Alsace: Trail in a Nutshell
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
Biking through the Garden of Eden
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.
Wine Notes: Suedliche Weinstrasse
What I Learned
The Rhineland Palatinate’s Suedliche Weinstrasse (Southern Wine Route) has a long-documented history of wine-making. Grapes were cultivated and processed into wine even in the early days of Roman settlement along the Rhine. The implements found throughout various sites in this part of the Pfalz, (the German name for Palatinate), some of which are in the wine museum in Edenkoben, bear witness to this long and continuous history.
Fassbodentour 5: Trail in a Nutshell
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”
