> This isn’t the sort of quaint German winery that you’ll see in the tourist ads. No geraniums, no trailing vines canopying secluded courtyards, no buxom serving wenches, no candle-lit…
> Not everywhere, mind you. There’s a micro-climatic zone just south of Mainz that’s invariably a week or so ahead in the Vegetation Stakes and the locals milk it for…
> Pretty much anywhere that serves beer. Or wine. Anything with a few rpms Even better if they make it on the premises. Goldener Engel brewery in NQN Ingelheim. A…
> Navigation lights at Michael Teschke‘s vineyard in Laurenziberg. The easy way to remember the port/starboard/left/right/red/green confusion is this one: “PORT wine is RED and is best LEFT well alone”…
> I’m not a regular visitor to palaces of conspicuous consumption aka shopping centres, but I’ll make an exception for The Loop in NQM Weiterstadt. They have a place…
> Anthony Hammond (American dad, German mum) runs the Garage Winery just across the river in Oestrich-Winkel. He calls his wine Sugar-Babe, Rosamunde, Kickstart and Goldmarie, sells them in 0.25…
> A young Josef Beuys holds court to a disinterested visitor at Frankfurt’s MMK (Museum of Modern Art)
> …the Schirn art museum in – ahem – Frankfurt. Not only did they buy me a new iPhone the other year, but their exhibitions are a treat. Current one…
> This goes back to last summer. Christian Lenz owns and runs a specialist plant nursery in Niederheimbach (AHSAAJ from Mainz) overlooking the Rhine. He specialises in landscaping, so he’s…
> I can’t seriously believe that no-one’s doing a Portsmouth Daily Photo. It was settled in 1630, so there’s lots of Olde Stuffe including Strawberry Banke, an outdoor history museum.…
> Drum roll. Ladies and Gennlemen – the Runner Up Never actually published and not even Mainz, but given my terminal case of peripateticism I’m sure you’ll forgive me. The…
> …an Eiswein. Another NQM moment. The Eiswein monument is a mere hsaaj down river in Bingen, opposite the Niederwalddenkmal (in the far distance, commemorating the creation of the German…
> I’m going to get that song into the Billboard 100….. The view from Fritz Roßmann‘s potter’s wheel in his studio in Höhr-Grenzhausen, a mere hsaaj from here. Through Any…
> If they hadn’t invented Ikea, I really don’t know what I would do with my time. For those of you who haven’t been lucky enough to enjoy the experience,…
> ……put away your DDTI don’t care about spots on my apples,Leave me the birds and the bees – please. Joni Mitchell, Big Yellow Taxi, 1970 Heritage apples on display…
> Isabel Holdsworth was Mum’s BFF (as they say). She’s 92, acts like 72 and still drives. And rips into the garage if they try to overcharge her.She’s worked for…
> I can normally smell microbreweries at a distance of 15 kilometres or so, but this one appears to have slipped under the radar. The Goldener Engel (“Golden Angel”) brewery…
> Ripping along the river the other week with the Prof on one of our heroic bike rides when we almost bowled over this trio. Prof barely dodged them and…
> Evidently one of the students from the European Business School, an elite college in the Rheingau, which hit the tabloid headlines the other day with lurid reports of…
> NQM. Who cares? Birgit Reis runs an excellent flower shop – “Pusteblume” – in Diedesfeld, which is a mere hop,skip and about 100km down the autobahn away from here.…
> Kalle Stöckle used to be a carpentry teacher at a trade school. In his spare time, he bought old pine furniture, did it up in his garage and sold…
> It’s that time of year again. Axel Schmitt’s legendary Summer Festival in (NQM) Ober-Hilbersheim. Read all about it here
> “…and chocolate.” “And chocolate” That would be my mate Christoph at the icecream parlour in (NQM) Heidesheim. No idea how he discovered the place – it’s certainly not particularly…
> My life seems to have been littered with hamburger joints, motorway cafs and greasy spoon eateries. When you work shifts at airports, you take whatever food’s on offer. At…
> …then hayell, Pairis, Frayence* belongs to the territory. The real story’s over on Paris through my lens which is an offshoot of Birmingham Alabama Daily Photo, run by a…
> I have no idea how I got roped into this, but last week I ended up at the University of Applied Sciences in Pforzheim lecturing 30 odd (surprisingly…
> There are few more pleasant ways of spending an afternoon than drinking wine and snacking* at the Wagner-Stempel vineyard in Siefersheim. OK, so it’s not free, but his Riesling…
> “So what do you think of the Pfeddersheimer*?” asked Martin Luther a bunch of friends in Wittenburg in 1540.*In this context “So what do you think of this wine…
> …you’ll need a decent coffee grinder…” As Patrick would say. (What he actually said was “Now that you’re a farmer, John, you’ll need a tractor” which is why I’ve…
> ..once. 3pm during the week and 10:30am on Saturdays. Surprised that it hasn’t been a) ripped out of its mountings and sold for scrap iron b) painted standard Post…
> Sculpture by Beate Thiesmeyer
Mainz Daily Photo 