A café in the Market
Square, in Staufen.
Picking edible herbs, leaves,
and flowers in Baiersbronn,
in the Black Forest.
Silke Wolf, the co-owner and
viticulturist at Shelter
Winery, in Kenzingen, with
her fox terrier, Ira.TRAVELANDLEISURE.COM 73
started in the early 1990s, when industrialized co-op wine
making (responsible for tanks full of what critic Jancis
Robinson once memorably termed “pale grayish pink liquids
smelling of rot”) gave way to a new emphasis on quality.
Once 10 percent of the country’s vines, red grapes now
represent 34 percent, and Pinot is prince among them.
Today, German Pinot Noir is often terrific: brilliantly
expressive and aromatic. The bottlings seem to get better
and better with each passing vintage.
I checked out of the Adler the next morning and headed
a few minutes down the road to meet Markus Wöhrle at
Weingut Wöhrle, his winery in Lahr, a city of 46,000. “In
the past ten years we’ve seen a big step forward in Baden,”