Years ago when my husband and I were first dating, we were at District Wine Bar in SF and I ordered…read morea glass of Baumann Riesling. That $18 glass pretty much changed my life and I've scoured the online wine auction community ever since, occasionally snagging a bottle here and there, but not having much luck.
This past summer, my husband and I had to be in England for his brother's wedding. Since we never officially took an actual honeymoon, we figured we'd jet off to Germany for a week afterward on our first "real" vacation together. In all honesty, the existence of Baumann was a prime factor in that decision. So one sunny Wednesday, we jammed ourselves into our little rental SLK (ha ha, "mietwagen") and drove from our pad in Frankfurt down to Albig, finally arriving at my mecca.
Good thing we got a late start, because we arrived exactly at opening time. But nobody seemed to be there....I guess picking a Wednesday for a wine tasting in the German back-country is a bit of a planning mistake. I may or may not have panicked a little bit. But Herr Baumann had noticed us pull in, so he came out to greet us. Unfortunately, my husband's German is pretty awful (he thought he'd have retained more from high school but NOPE). My shitty Italian was no help. And Herr Baumann doesn't speak a word of English. So it was a bit challenging to say the least! We were able to establish that we were interested in wine tasting however, so he escorted us into the tasting room and grabbed a couple bottles from the wine fridge. My husband made a valiant attempt to explain our mission, and Herr Baumann did an impressive job of working with it. Unfortunately it doesn't seem that they keep a library of older wines on hand (or at least not for sale to the public), so buying the Wine That Changed My Life from the source wasn't gonna happen. But Herr Baumann poured us a mind-blowing sparkling wine (Spatburgunder weissherbst), a Faberrebe, and a late-harvest Faberrebe. They were all absolutely amazing. We told him we'd like to buy a bottle of each (we'd have sprung for a couple cases if we didn't have the stupid TSA to deal with on the way home) and unbelievably, he charged us only 20 euros. TOTAL. Holy crap.
On our way out, my husband somehow pieced together enough broken German to inform Herr Baumann that we'd come all the way from the U.S. specifically to find his winery. Upon learning this, he motioned for us to follow him....and we ended up getting a tour of the production area which was awesome to see. Following that, he then directed us to his beat-up old Vanagon and took us on a fun bumpy ride up into the actual vineyards. We stopped at the top of a hill where there's a little stone gazebo overlooking MILES of gorgeous vine-covered countryside. Along the way up and back, he pointed out the different sections of vineyard and which grapes are grown where (the translation of this info wasn't that difficult).
Herr Baumann made a huge effort for us despite the language barrier and it was such a great experience. The grounds are beautiful and the wines here are unparalleled. We will definitely come back again someday. I bought my husband some learn-German-in-your-car CDs and goddammit we'll make it happen! In the meantime, I'm harassing all my friends in the wine industry to find a way to get this stuff on the menu....
