#RieslingRoadTrip Diary: Day 10 – My Fond Memories of the Southeast, it’s Charm and Hospitality

I’d been to the Southeast of the US several times before, but to be frank I didn’t really get it until Riesling Road Trip 2 forced me to spend a long week in this part of the country that I realized what makes it special and fell in love with it. I found that there was much truth in the clichés of Southern charm and hospitality, for example at our Riesling & Co. dinner at Petit Pois Restaurant in Charlottesville/VA pictured above. We were not nonly made very welcome, there was also great openness for our message, and almost everyone who attended our events enjoyed the wines to the full without any trace of hesitation. For all these reasons, I will be returning, probably in early December.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not idealizing this world. Savannah/GA is one of the most beautiful cities I’ve seen anywhere, but I can well understand how the city got the nickname Slowvannah. It clearly has a lot of catching up to do if it wants to match the blossoming gastronomic culture of Charleston/SC. There the downside was the way the tourists dominate parts of Downtown such as the Market Steets (North and South). I have to admit that apart from enjoying dinner at Poole’s Restaurant and our two trade tastings in Raleigh/NC I didn’t see much of the city, but the spirit (a combination of hedonism and professional curiosity) at those tastings delighted me. That is really the Riesling Spirit, and when you consider that the range of German Rieslings obtainable in the cities we visited is rather limited the wines have clearly connected with a good number of people already; another reason to return. How many more places are there like the Social Wine Bar in Charleston? I don’t know. I could only stop there for an hour, but managed to consume a big glass of 2011 Riesling Kabinett from J.J. Prüm in the Mosel with crispy shrimp spring rolls; a delicious combo that perfectly expressed the contemporary gastronomic spirit of that city. The cost? Just shy of $20 plus tax. The atmosphere? Relax, don’t do it!

Of course, being a good distance north of the Mason-Dixon line our stop last night, Baltimore/MD, doesn’t qualify as part of the South, even if at the beginning of the Civil War there were a lot sympathizers for the South there. To this day, at least on the gastronomic level, Baltimore has as much to do with the South as the North as our trade tasting yesterday evening confirmed. There is something unashamedly sweet and/or fatty about so much Southern Food, and the many variations on this theme combine beautifully with medium-dry and medium-sweet German Rieslings. That’s a no-brainer, also was at Baltimore’s Fleet Street Kitchen where we had dinner before our tasting.

PS We’re now en route back south to Washington DC, although part of the team is slightly delayed by an appointment with the Baltimore Police. Honestly, we didn’t do anything more last night than enjoy a glass or two of good German wine (as at the picture above proves). However, some idiot drove into the vehicle that pulls our Riesling Whale while it was on a Downtown parking lot last night, denting it slightly. If this is the worst that happens during 12 long action-packed days on the Riesling Road, then I’d say we were lucky, and maybe the cops didn’t always have their eyes open!