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It is a warm and sunny day in September. The wine harvest has just started. After a warm year with enoug rain in the summer months, this year is a promising one for the new wine. And the best wine comes from the steepest slopes.
This steep slope is part of the Castellberg in the Markgräflerland – a region where the history of wine-making reaches back to Roman times. The stairs and the walls of this part of the vineyard have just been renewed, so I dared climbing them with my panorama equipment (and with some help from a friend). If you look uphill and then turn to the right you can see the part of the vineyard that belongs to some members of the brass band of our parish. They have finished the harvest only two hours before and such a steep slope the wine harvest is hard work.
All the wine harvested on this part of the vineyard is Silvaner. Since the yield is strictly controlled and a skilled cellar master is responsible for the wine, the resulting Silvaner is a full and richly flavoured wine where the residual sweetnees is well balanced by an elegant acidity. Tough luck for you, that you have not got any of this wine in you cellar. Thus your only consolation can be in the words of Carl Zuckmayer, a German poet: " Having read a wine-list with imagination is nearly as good as having enjoyed all the wines on it." (i.e. full of wine. In German: "Weinkarte mit Phantasie gelesen, ist fast so schön, wie wirklich voll gewesen")
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