In June 2023, we travelled to Germany to attend the Master of Wine Symposium. It’s always good for us to leave our comfort zone and see how our wine looks in international company. One of the topics discussed at the Symposium was the meaning of ‘sustainability’ in different cultures. It turns out it means something different to different nationalities. As part of this research, they asked consumers to rank the main factors influencing their choice of wine and I found this very interesting. People ranked flavour as the most important, followed by price, then recommendation from a friend, with sustainability fourth. It was perhaps no surprise but all the same I found it reassuring to see flavour and price at the top of the list. I think many wine producers actually avoid these two because they’re the most ‘difficult’ to tackle. Flavour costs a lot of time and money in the vineyard and winery to achieve and most producers would rather consider anything than whether their price is too high. Consumers however are very good at assessing value.
On our first day in Germany, after a shower and a sleep to recover from the long flight, we went for a walk around the streets of Wiesbaden to explore our host city and get a bite to eat. Pretty soon we came across a little café with tables out on the footpath and decided to stop there because it looked authentic and loved. Over the following week we returned at any opportunity because it was just delightful. The lady who ran it was Italian and spoke pretty good English which was a great bonus because our German is almost non-existent! It was a delicatessen/providore as well as a restaurant and was well stocked. But it was the meals (and the lovely service) we returned for. The salads with leaves so fresh (not from a prepacked supermarket bag) reminded me how good simple things are when the ingredients are so good. The hand-made ravioli filled with mushrooms & served with a truffle cream sauce was Heaven (and not smothered in parmesan cheese because it didn’t need to be…have you noticed how parmesan is sometimes over-used, to add flavour to ordinary food?).
By our final visit we had become known to an older customer who was there every time, sitting at a table outside. He & other regular customers would get up to carry dishes to the kitchen when things got busy. It was a bit like having lunch at a friend’s house. Lovely memories, thank you and auf Wiedersehen!
Photo: About to enjoy our lunch at Pintus Feinkost, our favourite delicatessen/café on Taunusstrasse in Wiesbaden. Proprietor and chef Diala is serving a table in the background.