Sept 3rd - 7th

I woke up Monday morning bright and early at 4:30am to take water potential measurements of my vines in the vineyard. Since I had no idea about how to do this, Hans Schultz came along with me and showed me the ropes. It was actually a very fun morning aside from waking up so early. I had the chance to talk to Hans about all sorts of topics, and the sun rise over the Rhein valley was completely breathtaking. I highly recommend that to anyone how visits the area. Luckily, sunrise is around 6am, so you don’t have to get up too early to witness it.

That afternoon I took maturity samples from my vineyards and ran standard maturity analysis. With the exception of Brix, all the analysis is done by machine which is awesome. It doesn’t look like I’ll be doing any titrations anytime soon!! The sample preparation is actually pretty cool, because instead of smashing up the berry samples in a big and then analyzing the juice, the lab uses coffee presses to press 70-100 berries and extract the juice. I’m not sure how much more efficient the process is, but its definitely more fun. I almost feel like a barista in Starbucks….almost. In addition to maturity samples I also wanted to get an idea of what the maturity distribution looked like, so I determined the maturity of 8 clusters from each of my five rootstocks over the next two days. This entailed removing all the berries from the rachis and submerging the berries in a salt solution. I gradually increased the salt concentration, causing the berries to surface based on their density which is relative to the amount of sugar within them. Several hours and hundreds of grams of salt later, I had a pretty good distribution of individual berry maturity. Its not the fastest experiment to do, but very interesting.

On Wednesday we had a BBQ at our place, and invited some folks over. In total there were 8 of us in attendance from 6 countries. Now that is diversity. We each prepared a different side dish or appetizer and then all grilled together on our tiny Webber. It was nice to sit down with everyone over a meal and chat about everything and everything. Unfortunately there were some folks in the group who did not speak German, so most of the meal was in English. Although its definitely nice to hear English and be able to speak it with almost everyone, a part of me feels guilty because I feel like I am going to learn all the German I just learned. I am sure I will miss these moments though when the non-German speakers leave and my world is back to German 24-7!

I forget to mention this before, but last Thursday my Thai roommate Pat prepared an authentic Thai dish for all of us. I don’t know what it was called, but the main ingredients were chicken, spices, veggies, and eggs. I know that is not very descriptive (spices and veggies) but I could not begin to identify all the spices that she used. For me the dish definitely reminded me of the holidays because there was plenty of cinnamon and clove spices in the dish. All I know is that it was darn tasty and everyone thoroughly enjoyed!

On Thursday we had a “Betriefsausflug,” which is basically a day for everyone in our department to take a day trip together and have some fun outside of work. Magali and Peter organized the trip and it started out with a fantastic breakfast in our buildings courtyard. From there we walked to Ruedesheim and played minigolf. The minigolf here is nothing like that in the States. I am sure Germany has some bigger minigolf facilities, but this one was super tiny with very low tech holes. Regardless of the low tech atmosphere, the holes were still tons of fun and very challenging. I think it was a great way to get everyone to relax and to start the day. After minigolf we took the very touristy Ruedesheim tourist train up into the vineyards where the organizers had set out some tables for wine and juice. There is really nothing quite like drinking wine at 12 noon in the middle of vineyards overlooking the Rhein. After our wine break we road rented bikes through the vineyards to an old fortress that again, as usual, overlooked the Rhein. Tables were set up next to the fortress and we all enjoyed a lunch prepared by a local butcher who also works in our department. We had a fantastic goulash that was perfect for the overcast day. Again lots of wine was poured, and I quickly realized that some folks in this department will literally take every opportunity to drink during the day. It was great! After lunch we got back on our bikes and biked back through Ruedesheim on the way to Geisenheim. As I am sure you guessed, we did not bike the WHOLE 5 km straight through, but instead stopped in Ruedesheim and again had a glass of wine or three at the town plaza/square. Surprisingly everyone was incredibly well behaved and no one drank more than they could handle, though I’ll admit I was worried about some people for a while. We then biked back to the Institute, cleaned up a few things, and then walked to a local winery that was serving both wine and food. We had some dinner there and it was definitely a great way to end a very eventful day.

On Friday I got my first haircut in Germany which went surprisingly well. I really had no idea how to describe what I wanted in German, but I told the woman how I get my hair cut in America and when she found out I was from California, she was ecstatic! She wanted to know all about LA and about how many famous people I saw in my time there. When we finally got back to the subject of my hair she could tell I was a bit apprehensive about her using the electric buzzer on me. In the end, however, the haircut turned out quite well and I can now confidently get my hair cut and describe exactly what I want, until I describe exactly what I want and it turns out completely wrong. Then my confidence will be lost forever.

That night, Magali, Ryan (the South African), Catharina (a German) and I went out for dinner to a Winery in Ruedesheim. The atmosphere of this winery was perfect as the main dining room was so quaint and warm. It was very typical German in its design and I definitely want to come back during December when they will undoubtedly have Christmas decorations and a great fire burning. How can you beat that atmosphere and a glass of warm spiced wine? I don’t think you can. Did I also mention it has a view of Ruedesheim and the Rhein? Oh ya, it has that too.