Gimbsheim Wine Festival, Germany

Making friends at a locals only wine festival

By CivJety

I sat down at the slender, grey-topped table next to the leafy fence that marked the edge of the Gimbsheim Weinbrunnenfest. My company for the evening, all of whom were more than three times my age, could easily have been half the participants in any small town ladies night bingo club.

Expecting to slowly sip a glass of wine or two over conversation of knitting, gardening, or perhaps if it got a little edgy, how so-and-so had stolen someone else’s goulash recipe and passed it off as their own, I settled in with a mild sense of dread.

Ruth, the dark, curly-haired, woman who sat opposite me at the table, held up the small, smooth, elongated white stone I had just given her to add to her rock garden and uttered a comment in German that elicited a laugh from the other elderly woman who sat around us. Not wanting to be left out on the humor and eager for approval of my gift, I asked for a translation.

"It looks like a penis!"

"Like a what!?!" I said, quite surprised.

"Like a little boy’s penis."

I smiled and let out a chuckle mostly to help ease the awkwardness. As they laughed, someone poured me a drink, and then another, and then another. Soon, I was off to the wine stand to buy a few more bottles and staggered back to pour the next round.

The Weinbrunnenfest is held every year on the first weekend in July. It begins on Friday and runs every evening for four days. Unlike some of the larger wine festivals in the area, the one held in Gimbsheim is comparatively small and attended almost entirely by locals who gather together to enjoy music, dancing, food, and the variety of wines produced from the local vineyards.

The next morning, I slept in a bit to recover from the previous night out with the ladies. After finally getting up, I decided to go on a bike ride to take in the surrounding landscape and pass the time until the evening festivities were to begin. Riding down the narrow streets that cut through dense housing, I began to notice something. There is really nothing all that astounding about Gimbsheim.

There’s a butcher shop, a bakery, a couple of small pubs, but that’s about it. Having travelled around Europe quite a bit, I was used to seeing the postcard panoramas like St. Mark’s Square, Neuschwanstein Castle, and the Roman Coliseum. Gimbsheim’s only comparable site was a ten foot tall monument honoring the town’s veterans of World War One.

I kept riding on the road out of town and soon found myself perspiring to peddle up the paths along the ridge. The hillside was covered in grape vines lined in perfect rows like a striped shirt. Scattering rabbits as I rode along, I eventually stopped to rest and take in the scenery.

The Rheinhessen area, Germany largest wine growing region, is famous for its white wines. While theMosul Valley is regarded as one of Germany’s most scenic wine regions, the hills surrounding Gimbsheim make up a charming scene overlooking the Rheine River and many small towns such as Oppenheim, which ascends the hillside and is crowned by a miniature cathedral, disproportionately large for the surrounding community.

As I prepared to make my ascent back toward Gimbsheim, I took in a long breath of grape scented air and watched a farmer mend one of the rows. I hopped on the bike and peddled back down.

That evening, as I made my way back to the Weinbrunnenfest, I thought about my time spent in this small town. I realized that I was quite taken by it, but why? Until that moment, the answer remained elusive.

As travelers, we often set out to far flung places in search of something different, new, and authentic. As I walked, I reminisced about my time in Paris and how I made the rounds to all the must-see tourist sites, trying to take pictures of the Eiffel Tower that didn’t include someone trying to sell me multicolored flashing key chains. Something didn’t feel quite right.

Looking back on it, it wasn’t that commercialism and mass-tourism had ruined any possible culturally real experience. I just hadn’t been looking in the right places. Buildings, monuments, and landscapes can be great stops in an interesting afternoon of sightseeing, but its people who make an experience real and authentic.

By the time I got to the festival area, night had fallen and the bright red, blue, green, and yellow lights strung up all around lit up the faces of those seated around tables or swaying around on the makeshift dance floor. There, in the same spot as the night before, were my geriatric drinking buddies.

The worry over a potentially dull night out that I had felt the night before was long gone. Hilde, round-faced with graying hair and glasses, greeted me as I walked up. Smiling, I replied,

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