The German Wine Harvest Festival
The German Wine Harvest Festival in Neustadt on the Weinstraße is the highpoint of the wine harvest season
In early October, when most grapes are picked, the new wine is fermenting in the cellar and the work in the vineyards is nearing its end, the time comes for the winemaker to celebrate. The German Wine Harvest Festival in Neustadt is the highpoint of this festive season. The Rhineland-Palatinate wine capital invites its guests to the Weinstraße (Wine Route) for the second-largest wine festival in the world. Here it is the custom to serve the new wine in Dubbe glasses. A Dubbe glass holds half a litre and is, thanks to its many small round indentations, especially easy to keep hold of. You can also savour already mature Rieslings and Spätburgunders (pinot noirs). Small wine bars in half-timbered dress, called” Haiselscher” (little house), invite you to stop.
Germany’s largest winemakers’ parade
At the Wine Festival in the historical Spiegelpalast (Mirror Palace) in Hetzel Square, visitors can choose from 100 representative wines from the Palatinate and other German wine-growing regions. With these fine wines Nicole Fredrich, Annalena Götz, Anastasia Kronauer, Katharina Weisbrodt and Daniela Wisser are well versed. They are the aspirants to the throne of the Palatinate Wine Queen, who is chosen at the Wine Harvest Festival. And Josefine Schlumberger, too, the reigning German Wine Queen, will pass her crown on to a successor. The newly elected Highnesses can then be cheered at Germany’s largest winemakers’ parade on 9 October 2016. This, by the way, wended its way through the streets of Neustadt for the first time in 1909. In 2016 more than 100,000 visitors are expected.
German Wine Harvest Festival, until 10. October 2016 in Neustadt an der Weinstraße
