A visit to Germany's wine country

Several years ago we made a trip to Europe with my wife, Jean's, parents.

They were good sports about visiting museums, the Olympic site at Munich, and Vatican City in Rome, and really anything we would suggest doing, but the one thing they really wanted to see was the village of Friedelsheim, near Ludwigshaven, in Germany.

Friedelsheim is in the wine country between the Rhine and Mosselle Rivers in Southwest Germany. It is a very small village. A ring of large houses, opening on acres of vineyards, surrounds a cluster of smaller homes and a tiny business section. Most of the wage earners leave town each day to work in the surrounding cities. It doesn't even rate its own name -- it is known as Friedelsheim bei Bad Durkheim (a well known Spa). It was important to us because it was the Leisy ancestral home (Jean's family).

We found that villages in the wine country of Germany are very different from the small towns in rural Nebraska, in geography and in attitude.

There were hardly any retail businesses in Friedelsheim. There did not seem to be much activity of any kind while we were there. People told us that the economy centered on the wine industry, which mostly produced a semi-sweet Riesling wine.

There was a huge wine co-op, which had replaced wine making by individuals. The co-op processed grapes, and marketed wine through various distributors, under the co-op label. Growers brought their grapes to the winery, and either sold the grapes, or took back wine. Large growers had their grapes processed and the wine bottled under their own label.

Once a year Friedelsheim comes alive. Wine merchants come to town from all over Europe to check out the grape crop, and bid on the various types of grapes. Tourists flock to the village to celebrate the wine harvest at the Neuerwein (New Wine) Festival.

At the Neuerwein Festival locals and tourists make visits to the Wine Co-op with their own bottles, and fill them with wine from the huge vats. The wine is still in the fermentation state and cannot be permanently corked at this time, so people just take what they need for the evening meal, to drink with their traditional favorite, swiegelkuchen (onion cake). There is much singing, and dancing, and laughter -- a very happy and festive occasion.

Our relatives turned out to be an interesting group. Emil Showalter was a top executive at a chemical factory in Ludwigshaven.

Emil's cousin, Alfred worked at that plant. Alfred spoke excellent English. He had traveled all over the world, including extensive travels in the United States. He had bicycled across Europe, and regularly spent his holidays on the island of Ceylon.

His stories impressed us, and after a bit I mentioned that he must have a really good job to have traveled so often to so many different places.

His answer surprised us. "Not really" he answered. "I do not own a car, and I have never married. You'd be amazed at what you can do if you don't have to pay for a wife or a car."

Theo, Emil's brother lived in the Showalter family home, a large three-story home, with a courtyard and perhaps 10 acres of land, all planted to grapes. Theo and his family occupied the first and second floors of the house. His mother lived on the third floor. Their lives were entirely separate. She sometimes was invited to share a meal, as she did when we were there, but she respected their space and they hers.

Theo worked as an executive in a casino in nearby Bad Durkheim. His son, Marcus worked as a blackjack dealer in that same casino. Marcus, too had traveled a great deal around the globe, but he said that he drew no salary from the casino. His entire compensation came from tips that winners at his table paid to him.

The casino was lavish, and obviously was paid for by the gamblers who did not win. But there must have been quite a few winners as well, and those winners must have treated Marcus very nicely.

In the distant past the American Leisys were Mennonite. We got to visit the family Mennonite Church in Friedelsheim. In the late 1800's, Isaac Leisy, Jean's grandfather's cousin (a brewer in Cleveland) gave an organ to the Leisy Mennonite church in Wisner.

At the same time, he gave an identical organ to the Mennonite Church in Friedelsheim. As a girl Jean learned to play for church on the Nebraska organ, and the cousin, Theo Showalter learned to play on the Friedelsheim organ. He still provided the organ music for that church on that 1800s organ.

It was great fun for the two cousins to share memories of their experiences of playing the Isaac Leisy organs at church, and of course Jean got a chance to try out the Friedelsheim organ.

In the United States the Mennonite church is very much against the consumption of alcohol of any kind. In the past this led some of the Leisys to abandon the family (beer) brewing business and enter into farming.

However, in Germany the Mennonite Church has no such policy about alcohol. Indeed, in the large courtyard of the Mennonite church in Friedelsheim the front yard is entirely planted to grapes. Walking through the vineyard to church is very pretty, but the vineyard also provides the church an important source of income.

Upon learning of our coming to Friedelsheim the relatives could not have been more cordial. On a Sunday afternoon Emil Showalter arranged to take us on a little tour, to the homes of various cousins who lived in the area.

That tour took the afternoon, and each stop was the same. We would arrive at a home, meet several generations of people we didn't know, then spend 20 minutes getting the relationship straightened out, and look at family pictures, over a glass of Riesling wine, and a plate of little cookies. At first this was a very refreshing pause, but after the third or fourth stop we all began to feel a bit groggy, both from the jumbled mass of relationships and from the wine. We longed for a cup of coffee and a ham sandwich, which we never got.

The next morning Jean's mother remarked that she had exceeded her quota of wine for an entire year, and that she would not be drinking any more wine on our trip. She had no sooner made her announcement than we got word that the man who lived in the old Leisy home, had invited us to tour the home.

The home was old, but beautiful, unchanged on the outside, but modern inside. It was one of the larger homes we'd seen, and had a enclosed courtyard, with now unused stables. That courtyard was also the place where the grapes had been turned into wine. The present owner of the home had been the last Weinmeister for that winery, and later the Wine Co-op. There were still some of the old vats and presses around, collecting dust and adding charm to the courtyard.

The owner of the house was friendly and gave us a tour of the property and home, and then invited us to sit and chat for a few minutes. We had no sooner been seated than he brought forth a bottle of his finest white Riesling wine. It was just 9 a.m. I stole a glance at Jean's mother and saw her blanch noticeably, but for our host she smiled, accepted the glass, and gamely sipped her wine -- one last time.

On the day we were scheduled to leave Fried-elsheim we returned to Emil's home to say our farewells. The milkman was pulling away from the house as we drove up.

It was interesting for us to see just what a milkman in the heart of wine country would leave on Emil's doorstep -- two cases of beer, a case of wine, and two quarts of milk.