The advent of September awakens every fiber of nostalgia in my bones. Credit that to chalk dust and tin lunchboxes, replaced today by computers and designer backpacks, and the fact that, alas, no children exit our doors anymore. I take vicarious pleasure in my neighbors’ offspring, but it isn’t quite the same.

September also sparks a mental revisiting of the many festivals I enjoyed while living in Germany nearly 50 years ago, 49 if pressed. It is my understanding that Senior Citizens have poetic license to take advantage of all the remembering and reconstructing they desire, which is what I am about to do in reprinting a letter I wrote in 1956 to my parents in Annandale, Virginia. Herewith, Weinfests, Deutschland Style.

“If there is any one occasion which the German people love, and which is particularly typical of them, it is a ‘fest.’ It is an inherent part of their nature to enjoy doing things in groups, to feel a real stirring of nationalism, to play hard when they at last stop for this event. To this bit of psychology add the fact that Germany takes a great deal of pride in their land, both produce and the harvesting of same. Once can best understand this aspect of the Deutsch when at its highest peak: a “fest,” be it weinfest or Oktoberfest.

Both of these events occur annually during September and October. Here are some impressions of my first weinfest.

“A weinfest has essentially the same characteristics as the Oktoberfest except on a smaller scale. Locate, if you will, on a map of Germany, that north-south corridor west of the Rhine River and north of Mannheim. This is the weinstrasse, an area distinguished by its acres of vineyards and dotted with tiny towns whose inhabitants harvest and sell the wines. Each town holds its own fest, beginning in early September when the previous year’s ‘new wine’ must be consumed to make room for the present year’s yields.

“A drive along this weinstrasse is a revelation! It is hard to believe that so many grapes can be grown. The land is generally flat with a gentle rolling pattern. It is bordered on the east by a range of mountains that resemble the backbone of some great verdant beast stretched out lazily in the sun. Straight rows of poles march over the fields, sometimes diagonally, sometimes in arcs, always laden with leafy green vines twining over taut lines overhead.

“If one drives slowly one sees heavy bunches of white or purple fruit spilling down the poles. Fields run into fields, stopped only by the towns’ borders.

“The towns usually consist of one long main street with few side streets or alleys paralleling either side. Beam-and-plaster houses and shops hug the main street, where more vines twist around each window sill, twist over the red-shingled roofs and mingle with red geraniums on the window boxes. Old ladies rest dimpled arms on the sills and stare out at the traffic on a Sunday afternoon. Neustadt, Maikammer, Hambach, Diedesheimer, Bad Durkheim, Ebenkoben, Landau: all names of tiny villages here, and more familiar to the average person via the label on a wine bottle than from a map.

“Bad Durkheim’s ‘fest’ is traditionally the largest and most famous of the ‘fests’ for it is the wine and wurst ‘fest.’ Here the atmosphere is pure country fair/carnival/circus, complete with huge tents
sheltering long oil-cloth covered tables and a raucous oompah-oompah band or bands. Add to this cheerful singing and swaying and rosy-cheeked frauleins who carry to their customers half-liter glasses of pale, golden liquid, usually 6 glasses per hand. Over all, the indefinable, utterly delicious aroma of roasting wurst.

“These fests attract the people of each village who visit to perhaps appraise their competition’s product. It is amazing to note the difference in the flavor of wines of each town. Such a variety within this concentrated area.

“Neustadt, the capital of this area, boasts the crowning of the Wine Queens here and of all the weinfests in Germany. This ‘fest’ is somewhat smaller than the one at Bad Durkheim but there is the same fun to be had, the same friendliness and unreserved hospitality offered, the same heady feeling to be gotten from this new wine.

“Until one has experienced this aspect of Deutsch gemutlichkeit, a visit to Germany cannot be called complete.”

And if I claim poetic license as a Senior, I beg to blame youthful enthusiasm for poor grammar and any erroneous facts herein. Auf Weidersehen!

Barbara Dickinson yearns to smell those roasting wursts and listen to the oompah bands once again!

Comments or questions? E-mail to comments@primeliving.net.