Wednesday, November 26
Wednesday morning we picked up our rental car and headed to the Wacau to visit my favorite wine maker: Knoll. The Austrians pronounce the 'k', so it sounds like ka-noll. As is typical of this river valley, the wines were white. Mostly Rieslings and Gruner Veltliners. Yummy beyond belief. A religious experience as is reflected on their over the top labels. I would scoff at such iconography coming from any other wine maker, but knoll is good enough to pull it off. A transformative experience, for sure.
After surviving the journey through the Knoll underworld we emerged with super human powers. Or maybe just a little drunk. Linda was taking it easy, thankfully, and safely guided us to our next destination: Rudi Pichler. There was a quick roadside lunch along the way, but I can't remember the name. But it was probably the place to eat if you're visiting Rudi.
He took us up to see some vineyards in his car. Amazingly steep terraced hillsides overlooking the Danube river. Except it was so foggy we couldn't see anything. I'm sure it was quite beautiful. They had just had major flooding in the area, and the workers were out rebuilding some of the stone work that had been damaged. A lot of the terraces were built in Roman times, so you could tell this was a serious flood to have caused so much havoc. But the vineyards were mostly high enough to have escaped. It didn't seem like it would damage production too badly.
After that we went back to his winery for a tasting. I think this is the only place where we didn't see the cellar.
Just for the record, there is another, arguably even more famous, Pichler in the area - FX Pichler (is that how it's spelled?) - but there is no family connection between the two.
Afterwards we thanked Rudi and headed a short distance back to Krems where we quickly checked into the Hotel Steigenberger. This was the most modern place we stayed. The internet connection in the lobby was greatly appreciated. Quick shower, and then back to Loibner for dinner with Emerich Knoll at the familly restaurant Loibnerhof. After drinking all the young Knolls in the morning, I couldn't wait to taste something older. This desire marked us throughout the trip, as the Austrians like to drink very young wines. We would order Reislings from the 80's and everybody would have our number right away. Wine geeks.
After dinner we convinced Emerich to sell us a few bottles of dessert wine to take back to the hotel, and consequently we got a final peak behind the scenes.
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Wednesday morning we picked up our rental car and headed to the Wacau to visit my favorite wine maker: Knoll. The Austrians pronounce the 'k', so it sounds like ka-noll. As is typical of this river valley, the wines were white. Mostly Rieslings and Gruner Veltliners. Yummy beyond belief. A religious experience as is reflected on their over the top labels. I would scoff at such iconography coming from any other wine maker, but knoll is good enough to pull it off. A transformative experience, for sure.
After surviving the journey through the Knoll underworld we emerged with super human powers. Or maybe just a little drunk. Linda was taking it easy, thankfully, and safely guided us to our next destination: Rudi Pichler. There was a quick roadside lunch along the way, but I can't remember the name. But it was probably the place to eat if you're visiting Rudi.
He took us up to see some vineyards in his car. Amazingly steep terraced hillsides overlooking the Danube river. Except it was so foggy we couldn't see anything. I'm sure it was quite beautiful. They had just had major flooding in the area, and the workers were out rebuilding some of the stone work that had been damaged. A lot of the terraces were built in Roman times, so you could tell this was a serious flood to have caused so much havoc. But the vineyards were mostly high enough to have escaped. It didn't seem like it would damage production too badly.
After that we went back to his winery for a tasting. I think this is the only place where we didn't see the cellar.
Just for the record, there is another, arguably even more famous, Pichler in the area - FX Pichler (is that how it's spelled?) - but there is no family connection between the two.
Afterwards we thanked Rudi and headed a short distance back to Krems where we quickly checked into the Hotel Steigenberger. This was the most modern place we stayed. The internet connection in the lobby was greatly appreciated. Quick shower, and then back to Loibner for dinner with Emerich Knoll at the familly restaurant Loibnerhof. After drinking all the young Knolls in the morning, I couldn't wait to taste something older. This desire marked us throughout the trip, as the Austrians like to drink very young wines. We would order Reislings from the 80's and everybody would have our number right away. Wine geeks.
After dinner we convinced Emerich to sell us a few bottles of dessert wine to take back to the hotel, and consequently we got a final peak behind the scenes.
- jim 12-03-2002 2:38 am