On Saturday my friend Kim and I took a USO tour called Riesling...something..something...wine tour. That's all I heard anyway ;) Erich "the Red" was our German guide. He got his nickname from President Kennedy, because he couldn't pronounce Erich's last name. So because Erich had (at that time) a red beard and red hair, Erich "the Red" he became. Erich took us through the Rheingau (Rhein River area) stopping in a few towns to explain different things about them and the places you can go to taste the small winery's product. He was a wonderful tour guide with a very dirty-old-man sense of humor.
The tour was mostly driving through the towns on a "bus." The bus, it turned out, was a 15-passenger van. I knew that was trouble in the making, since I tend to get a little car sick, but add windy roads and some incline to it and I wasn't enjoying the ride. Since it was bitterly cold, everyone opted for an old coffeehouse Erich offered instead of more of the tour in the middle of the afternoon. After that, it was more driving; however, we finally ended up at our final destination close to 4.
We went to a small winery where we were treated to 9 wines, plus dinner, and dessert. Everything was delicious! Erich described the wines, what food they went well with, and of course added his humor at any chance he got. "Nipple popper," we learned, was one of his favorite phrases and once he described a wine as a "triple nipple popper."
After dinner, we headed down to the cellar, which dated back to the 1200's. The owner of the winery told us that tradition was that when your daughter got married instead of a dowry, you gave several bottles of wine from your daughter's birth year. His daughter never got married, so he let us taste some of his wine from 1975. Delicious!
Kim thinks Erich had a slight crush or fascination with me, because he made note of my cold red nose while we were outside, remarked how good my haircut looked on me, and also called me "princess" and his "doll." Oh, and when Kim wanted a picture of the two of us, he insisted on kissing my hand.
I don't have any other prospects...hmmm.
