After having hiked through the steep and forested slopes of the Mittelrhein, I continued my tour of the Rheingau wine region’s vineyards by bicycle. At Ruedesheim, I left the Rheingauer Riesling-pfad (see here), and hopped on a bike following the Rheingauer Riesling Route. The two trails cover the Rheingau vineyard area, but following somewhat different routes.
I was immediately struck by how different the wine area upriver from Ruedesheim is from that downriver of it. Upriver from Ruedesheim, the world heritage site of the “Mittelrhein” ends. The obvious difference is that the river suddenly opens up again. The narrow chasm defining the romantic middle Rhine with its vertiginously steep slopes disappears, replaced by gentler vine-bearing slopes. Cities soon replace quaint villages, and the river takes on a more business-like aspect, industry, ports for shipping, and riverside loading facilities.
What I Learned
The Rheingau, in the German state of Hesse, has one of the smallest total vineyard areas in all of Germany. But nonetheless, it has a huge importance in the world of wines. It is not only one of the most famous wine areas in Germany, it is also strung along one of the most famous stretches of river in the world!
Rheingau wine aficionados can point with pride to a long and continuous tradition of wine-making in this area: from having one of the oldest wine estates in Germany, Schloss Vollrads, to a monastery founded by the medieval St Hildegard, where the nuns still grow grapes.
Trail Name: Rheingauer Riesling Route
Trail Type: Long distance trail; almost exclusively paved, well maintained; the route itself is marked in part with the wine glass marking (see below), and other parts are marked with an R3.
Length:
Total: 62 kilometers/38.5 miles (Kaub to Floersheim)
Segment: 49 kilometers/30.5 miles (Ruedesheim to Floersheim)
Convenient to: Wiesbaden, or Mainz, Germany
Marking:
White wine glass with a crown on a green background; Alternatively: R3 and R3a (variant to Kloster Eberbach). Where the icon marking is not easily found, follow the R3 or R3a signs.
Continue reading Rheingauer Riesling Route: Trail in a Nutshell
The German state of Hesse is home to one of the most famous wine regions in the world for Riesling wine: the Rheingau. Here, hectares of terraced vineyards looming above the middle Rhine River arguably form the world’s most iconic riverine vineyard site.
Two trails named in honor of the Rheingau’s most famous product, Riesling wine, pass through these vineyards. One is a hiking trail, and the other is a cycling route. Both start together in Kaub, and follow the Rhine upriver. Both are over 60 kilometers long, the hiking trail actually being 91 kilometers in length. Not having enough time to hike the whole trail, and not knowing when I would get back to the area, I decided to cover half of the Rheingau trails’ area by hiking the northern half of the hiking trail, and then by cycling the southern half of the bicycle route.
What I Learned
According to many experts, Riesling wine reaches its pinnacle in the Rheingau. Here, the vintners have been making this wine, almost exclusively this wine, for hundreds of years. Locals as well as buyers from around the world eagerly await the resulting products each year. And from the modest-sized family wineries to the large international concerns, each winery will offer a range of Riesling wines, in styles ranging from dry to off-dry to sweet.
The most basic Riesling will be a Qualitaetswein. Next up the quality scale is a Kabinett Riesling.
Trail Name: Rheingauer Riesling Pfad
Trail Type: A long-distance hiking trail; well-maintained and with a variety of trail surfaces; marking on the trail very good.
Length:
Total – 91 kilometers/55.5 miles
Segment: about 30 kilometers/about 19 miles
Convenient to: Mainz, Wiesbaden, Germany
Marking: Yellow (or white) wine glass with a crown, on a (usually) green background
Continue reading Rheingauer Riesling Pfad: Trail in a Nutshell
