Revisiting a favourite spot is risky business, especially if it involves wine
A beloved hillside wine walk in Hesse once offered quiet trails and crisp rieslings. Some 12 years later it’s a very different vintage – and a reminder that not all memories are meant to…
We all have memories of a wonderful trip taken, an event attended or a travel highlight that we have held on to and thought, “I must go back there sometime.” We keep meaning to revisit, and it’s just a case of picking the right moment to relive those glorious memories a second time around.
This letter is about one of my own such memories: an annual wine walk held on 1 May in the hills of three German towns – Zwingenberg, Bensheim and Heppenheim – in the state of Hesse, nestled between Frankfurt and Heidelberg. About half a dozen vineyards, spread out among the hills, open their doors to guests and there’s a leisurely stroll of around three to four hours between them all. You’re given a small wine glass with a leather holder to be worn around your neck, allowing you to indulge in the tastings at every stop and continue walking. And if you find a wine that you particularly enjoy, you can buy a bottle and perch yourself on a picnic table for an idyllic interlude.
This part of Germany is known for its white wines – rieslings, weissburgunders, grauburgunders and silvaners. Just make sure to pace yourself so that you’re not stumbling through the rest of the hike because the walk is part of the fun. The weather is usually sunny, the hill trails are picturesque and the mood is appropriately cheerful.
Sounds delightful, right? I did this walk for the first time about 12 years ago, when I lived in Frankfurt and the excursion was an hour’s train ride away. It was clearly a local highlight but word hadn’t spread much beyond the Frankfurt region. The experience struck such a chord that I have been wanting to return for years – and this was finally the time. I booked flights from London for a trip down memory lane. The weather was meant to be glorious, just as it was when I last went.
This time, however, word had indeed spread. My travel partner and I arrived to find a mass of visitors who had done most of their drinking before even getting to the walk itself. I’m not exaggerating when I say that we were literally shuffling shoulder to shoulder in a stream of people so dense that we had to stop in our tracks, waiting to edge our way into the first vineyard just outside of Zwingenberg.
We spent about 20 minutes at the first vineyard, bought a bottle of wine, then waited in another line going out of the same vineyard before giving up on the whole experience – my partner wondering what sort of fresh hell I’d brought her to. It felt as though everyone had suddenly caught on to my memory and ruined it by joining in. Sometimes, precious memories are best left as just that. Trying to recreate the past rarely works and it’s often better to create new memories – or at least just roll with the times.
The funny thing about this walk is that it was still possible to enjoy it. Step just 100 metres from the main trail and you’re suddenly on your own, in the still-glorious hills of one of the world’s most beautiful wine regions. We came back down from our drinking perch at about 16.00, when the crowds had cleared and the walk felt much more like the one from my memories. We also explored other vineyards and trails in the area along the Rhine River, including the Lorelei, which is another favourite of mine. Germany’s Rhine-Main is far less discovered than it deserves to be – and it’s well worth a visit.
Just stay away from my 1 May wine walk. I’ll be back in 20 years to test the waters again, when everyone else has hopefully forgotten about it.
