This superb tour to Alsace and the Mosel has featured in the Arblaster & Clarke programme since 1989 and remained extremely popular ever since. We stay in Trier, the oldest city in Germany with many Roman remains. There is an attractive colourful town square lined with many traditional shops and weinstubes. In Alsace we stay in the picturesque town of Riquewihr one of the prettiest of the Alsatian villages.

Stylistically the fullness of Alsace contrasts with the elegance of the Mosel. As each wine estate produces a wide range of wines, our tastings will often include as many as 14 wines! In the Mosel and Saar virtually all the wines we taste will be Rieslings but showing great variation of flavour due to the “terroir” of the vineyard, the level of ripeness and the hand of the wine-maker. In Alsace we will taste the full range of grape varieties: Riesling, Gewürztraminer, Tokay-Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Noir, Sylvaner, Muscat and Auxerrois, some in the richer Vendange Tardive and the occasional fully sweet Selection des Grains Nobles. Several of our meal times are spent as guests of the wine estates – where our copious tastings will be accompanied by helpings of the best traditional cooking.

People are often under the misconception that German food consists solely of platefuls of sausages; needless to say, this type of meal is by no means obligatory. You may be surprised to find that German cooking can be very refined, elegant and almost French in style!

The food of Alsace is wonderfully wholesome and often served in brightly coloured, patterned traditional pottery. In the weinstubes you enjoy the wines and delicacies of the region, relatively inexpensively. There will be time to explore some of the “fairy tale” villages of Alsace, such as Riquewihr, Colmar and Turckheim, with their wood-framed often brightly painted houses and geranium be-decked balconies.