#RieslingRoadTrip Diary: Day 1 – The Great Riesling Lamp Goes On in Key West/ Florida

This is how our whole mad endeavor began early this morning on Higgs Beach in Key West/Florida. Suddenly it was time to hit the Riesling Road and head due north on #RieslingRoadTrip 2! North is the direction every Riesling wine looks in its heart of hearts, and it’s the direction that the heart of every Riesling leans too. The Rhine, Mosel, Nahe, Main, Neckar (four wine tributaries of the Rhine) and the Elbe!  Strange and holy waters in the Riesling Far North on the other side of the pond pictured above. So there was no alternative, but to say goodbye to the tropical vegetation, the beautiful birds and lizards of this island with a sell-by date (due to global warming and the rising oceans that it’s unfortunately causing).

That’s a sad story, so let’s turn to my big positive discovery here: the grossly under-appreciated Key West Sunrise. Tourists here are obsessed with two things, the Southernmost Point in the U.S. and the Key West Sunset. Of course, I also did those two Must Do things. To be frank the Southernmost Point marker looks like a gaudily colored, over-sized traffic obstacle. Parking our whale (more about our mobile tasting room soon) next to it actually made the marker look a whole lot better. It wasn’t even a surprise, because when I landed at Key West airport yesterday the terminal building was adorned with a copy of it and what looked like wax works of a group of tourists standing around it. At that moment any suspense was out the window.

However, the Key West Sunset really has a lot going for it, although when people talk about it what they actually mean is the sunset plus crowds of tourists in shorts watching it. And in that warm, waning glow most of those people look way better than in full daylight. In contrast, the sunrise is seen only by few, because most people are still crashed out from the previous night‘s revelry. This means that the hardy few can savor it undisturbed. Even the luxury condos look beautiful in that pearly and peachy light. To misquote the radio DJs: it’s another beautiful daybreak in paradise!

I have a theory that I’ll be testing on a group of Floridian wine consumers in Miami later today. It says that when the sun comes up the Great Riesling Lamp goes on. Then the normal human response to that is to feel a growing yearning for my favorite wine in it original German form, with that dangerously refreshing taste which changed my life so many times I lost count. It can do the same for you too!

As many of you (the regular readers) already know I was in February I was in Florida for the first time, and even that early in the year the Great Riesling Lamp went on every day. I think this means that Florida has the longest Riesling Season of any state in the Union! The only problem is that many residents of and visitors to the Sunshine State don’t realize this vital fact yet, and are suffering unnecessarily from Riesling Deprivation Syndrome (RDS). By the way, recent research showed that RDS reduces your sex appeal and may even harm your credit rating.

During the next couple of days I’ll be doing all I can to reduce the still high percentage of Floridians suffering from RDS. I don’t begin to understand it, but yesterday evening in Key West drinking big heavy Californian reds. I’ve nothing against those wines on principal, but on a warm Key West night unless you’re in a room with the AC cranked up full blast (artificial winter) and you’ve got a big steak (hardly local produce!), they could be difficult to get down in more than homeopathic quantities. Maybe the explanation for this illogical behavior lies in images like the above, or at least their presence as fantasies in the minds of a certain type of men. I mean the ones who think that they’re macho.

If those really are the only wines you enjoy, then as Your Drinking Advisor I suggest beer or margaritas instead. However, Riesling is the best refreshment in this climate. I speak from experience, having tested the effect of Riesling on my own body and soul under varying degrees of heat blast in Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and West Texas during the first #RieslingRoadTrip last July. It always worked, even in temperatures way over 100° F in Phoenix, and sometimes it was the wines I thought would be too simple to excite me which gave me the greatest refreshment.  One of the wonders of German Riesling is that global warming increased the number of those wines. There’s something paradoxical about this, because climate change reduced the acidity content of German Rieslings and increased their bodyweight, and on paper that ought to make them much less refreshing.

Next up will be some thoughts about the deeper meaning of our Undertaking, our eccentric vehicle, and the road we are taking. Of course, there will also be plenty of strange stuff that happened, because when you undertake something like this you invite strangeness to come and seek you out. At least, if you imagine that it won’t, then I think you’re deluding yourself. I promise you that I’m not, and I promise that I’ll keep all my sense and my mind open for it at every twist and turning of this Long and Winding Riesling Road. Grab a glass of wine (preferably something dangerously refreshing from Germany), sit back and watch this space!

PS We just reached Miami and I must dash into the shower to make sure I’m halfway on time for this evening’s dinner at The Cypress Room in the Design District