Wine Tasting in Bernkastle

The base offers a wine tasting trip about once a month. I've heard from a few people that it is a good time. Josh and I have been interested in going since we got here, but we have never taken the time to do it. Kind of like the Cochem castle dinner - we wanted to go and we just never seemed to take the time to do it. I think I was in this mind-set a few months back of, "Screw it, we're doing it," because I signed us up for the wine tasting the same day I signed up for the castle dinner.

We met on base in the afternoon and we were bused to Bernkastle. We went to Bernkastle for the Christmas Market when my mom was here. It's a cute little town - quaint is definitely the word to use here - which is surrounded by vineyards. We had time to spend in Bernkastle. When my mom was here we had found a little jewelry shop which made and sold unique pieces. The only thing I wanted to do was find this store again. It took a little bit for us to remember which winding street to take, but we eventually found the store I wanted. When I had gone shopping during the Christmas Market I found this bracelet which I constantly receive compliments on. I found a bracelet yesterday which is similar in concept but still different - I'm excited to wear it. Poor Josh was patient as it took me about 20 minutes to walk through the store and make my decision.

After I did my necessary shopping, we still had plenty of time to kill. The weather was typical German spring weather - it couldn't make up its mind. One minute it was pouring down rain, and then five minutes later the sun would come out and it would be beautiful. Josh and I sat out the rain storm inside of a cafe, and managed to have sunshine as we walked along the river.

We met back up with the tour group and we were bused to where the wine tasting took place. The fun thing about this tasting was we were, literally, having dinner and tasting wine at the vineyard owner's house. He talked with us about the history of his vineyard, explained the different wines, and attempted to tell some dirty jokes in broken English. The food was amazing - pork roast and potatoes au gratin. The wine was okay. We live near the Mosel River, and in this area they mainly grow grapes for white wines. There were a few dry white wines we tried, which were good - nothing special, but not bad. The majority of the wines which we tasted were different varieties of sweet white wines. I'm not a huge fan of sweet wine. It can quickly become too much and lead to a headache without a buzz. Needless to say, Josh and I would just take a few sips of each wine. That was more than enough for us. This actually worked out well because at the end of the night we were both still sober and feeling fine. Similar to our castle trip, there were plenty of people who were absolutely schmammered. Most of the drunks were entertaining, but there was one highly obnoxious drunk (there always is). Luckily our trip back to base was relatively quick so we didn't have to endure much. Even though we weren't fans of the sweet wine, we still managed to come home with 8 bottles of wine. How does this happen? I'm not really sure... But we had a good time and I'm glad we can check this trip off our list.