The other Burgundy (Baden, Germany - Day Two)

The largest town in Baden is Freiburg, and is famous in Germany for two things. The first is that it is the capital for cycling, and it is hard to miss them. When I say that I don’t mean that I hit a bunch of people on bikes in my rental car, I just mean that there are a lot of them, obviously. They are a little aggressive, but I guess you would be if you finally outnumbered cars on the road. The second thing that makes Freiburg famous in Germany is that it is a university town, and so is filled with plenty of good places to eat and drink for not much money. There is a really nice brauhaus where I enjoyed a stein of local lager with a big plate of smoked ham and sauerkraut, for only 10 Euro. I spent a fair amount of my time in Starbucks taking advantage of the free wifi, as my hostel didn’t have any. The coffee is terrible, but you can’t pass up on free wifi.

Schlossberg vineyards of Weingut Huber

Border hopping (Baden, Germany – Day One)

You forget how close Alsace is to the border considering how different it is, but it dawned on me five minutes after leaving my accommodation in Strasbourg I was back in Germany. Situated on the eastern bank of the Rhine is the state of Baden-Wurtemberg, but Baden and Wurtemberg are legislated as different wine regions. Baden alone is the third largest wine region in Germany covering 16,000 hectares, but compared to Rheinhessen and the Pfalz it is not really known outside of Germany. The region has similarities to its neighbour over the French border, but is generally considered the red wine region of Germany. Much like Alsace cooperatives are very common, and 85% of the production is made by them. Also similar to Alsace, burgundian varieties are very popular, the most important being spatburgunder (pinot noir), grauburgunder (pinot gris) and weissburgunder (pinot blanc). The region is separated into nine districts from north to south, with the best known being Kaiser Stuhl. This name may be familiar with Australian wine consumers, but associate it with very cheap cask wine from the last century, no longer in existence (as far as I know).

Kaiser Stuhl vineyards