Trail Name: Chemin des Grands Crus
Trail Type: Long distance hiking trail, wine-themed; with a widely varying trail surface from paved road to grass track, somewhat maintained, and signposted or marked at many intersections, but not all.
Length:
Convenient to: Dijon, Burgundy, France
Continue reading Trail of the Grands Crus: Trail in a Nutshell
Another day and another hike in France, but this one was an extraordinary outing, providing a multitude of sensory memories to savor!
Gastronomic hiking has become very popular in Alsace – and why not? Eating is one of the country’s favorite social activities: The food is excellent, the wines divine, and the company generally convivial. Alsace this season offered well over a dozen. The one I participated in, set around the attractive town of Barr, offered all three: a 7-kilometer (4 mile) hike that included flavorful Alsatian food, a variety of well-balanced local wines, and plenty of joie de vivre among the participants.
The Mittelhaardt is a lively district in September and early October, because this is when Neustadt an der Weinstrasse holds its famous Weinfest, preceded by the Wurstmarkt, in Bad Duerkheim. These are two of the most popular wine festivals in the Mittelhaardt. These two small but fun towns, about 11 miles apart, are joined by the German Wine Route Hiking Trail, as it makes its way through the Mittelhaardt wine district of the Pfalz.
After finishing the southern half of the same trail, leading through the Suedliche Weinstrasse wine district to Neustadt, I later continued north through the town and into the nearby vineyards.
Continue reading Hiking the German Wine Route: The Mittelhaardt
What I Learned:
The northern part of the Pfalz wine region is known as Mittelhaardt, beginning around Neustadt an der Weinstrasse, and continuing to around Worms, in Zellertal.
Reds grown here include the Spaetburgunder (Pinot Noir), and Dornfelder, among others. But Riesling grapes predominate, as more than half the grapes grown in this region are of this varietal. Other white varietals of German fame include Mueller-Thurgau, Kerner, and Gewurztraminer. One varietal cultivated here, not often heard of in the non-German world, is known as the Scheurebe. In 1916, German viticulturalist, Georg Scheu, created this grape in his institute’s laboratory in Alzey, not far from the northern edges of the Mittelhaardt. This varietal is often destined to produce the sweet wines.
Continue reading Wine Notes: Pfalz Mittelhaardt Wine District
One of the loveliest hikes in Germany is a 60 mile-long, mostly a gentle walk through vineyards and villages, at the edge of the Haardt Mountains on the west side of the Rhine River Valley. The entire area in this southwest corner of Germany is known as the Pfalz, in German, and the Palatinate in English. As the name implies, the area is filled with castles. Castles and wine: I love this region! The pristine villages, back-dropped against evergreen, red sandstone mountains capped by castle ruins, with their wonderful wines and wineries keep calling me back for more visits.
Continue reading Hiking the German Wine Route: an Oenophile’s Paradise
The Weintor, a towering gate marking the beginning of the German Wine Route (Deutsche Weinstrasse), will forever mark in my mind the first step of a fantastic journey: A wonderful hike through the glorious and relatively unknown German wine districts of Suedliche Weinstrasse and Mittelhaardt in the fabulous region of the Pfalz in southwest Germany.
Continue reading The Classic Deutsche Weinstrasse: Hiking the Suedliche Weinstrasse
What I Learned:
The Pfalz has a long 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, some of which are in the museum in Edenkoben, bear witness to this long history. The tradition continued with the establishment of regional monasteries, such as the one in Wissembourg, France, just south of today’s Weintor in neighboring Germany, dating to the 600s; and important dioceses’ centers in old Roman districts, such as Worms and Speyer. (Church services required wine, hence vineyards for the raw material.)
Trail Name: Deutsche Weinstrasse Wanderweg (Schweigen – Leinsweiler-Edenkoben-Neustadt/Weinstrasse segments)
Trail type: Long distance hiking trail; mostly hard-packed gravel or paved, well maintained and fairly well marked.
Length: total (of the Suedlich Weinstrasse half): circa 54 km/33 miles
Schweigen – Leinsweiler segment: circa 25 km/15 miles
Leinsweiler – Edenkoben segment: circa 18 km/11 miles
Edenkoben – Neustadt segment: 11 km/7 miles
Convenient to: Karlsruhe, Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany
Continue reading Deutsche Weinstrasse/Suedliche Weinstrasse: Trail in a Nutshell
Variety is the spice of life, as the saying goes – and this circuit trail proved the point. Landscapes as varied as meadows, fields and forest, hill and dale, streets, steps and dirt paths, and of course, vineyards and villages, all ranged along or near one of the most famous wine-growing riverscapes in the world: the Moselle River Valley. The variety and natural beauty of this trail will always enchant hikers with new vistas over each ridgeline, or views around each river bend.
