Hello, Readers, I’ll be posting for the rest of the week (if I can keep the batteries on the laptop charged) from Germany, specifically from the Rheingau and Pfalz, where I’ll be touring organic vineyards and tasting wines and figuring out what’s going on with sustainable and biodynamic grape-farming in these ancient places. I’m based in Oppenheim, a very charming city nestled on a steep hill — all the towns are — that rises from the great Rhine river. The image is of a corner in the Old Town of Oppenheim, below the top of the hill where several old churches stand. How old? Well the original edifice of the Katherinekirche was built in 1225; the new addition is from 1459.

Tomorrow, my group will visit Geisenheim Research Institute, down the river a few miles, have a tasting in the afternoon with the director of ECOVIN, taste wines at Weingut Peter Jakob Kuhn, an estate that has been farming biodynamically since 2004, and then ending with dinner at Hotel & Weinhus Zum Krug in Hattenheim and having dinner with more wines from Peter Jakob Kuhn. Then back to Oppenheim to read email and post to this blog, followed by collapsing in bed.