Hello!

My husband, younger brother and I will be going to Germany in April. We will be spending the first half of our trip in Cochem and using the time to explore the Mosel valley. We would love to visit some wineries and vineyards but I'm not sure what the etiquette is on this. Do the wineries open for wine tastings or tours?

Thank you,
Tracy

Drop into the local town web sites and they normally give a guide.

Mosel tourist site issues a booklet of opening information.

Starter for ten

Trier offer a saturday and sunday visit to the local vinyard.

The etiquette is like this:

Many wineries advertise for tastings/tours. Some are free, some charge a nominal fee. Some have regular visiting hours, others require a recommendation.

Usually the best thing is to ask your hotel receptionist and/or the tourist office for recommended wineries.

Or you do some internet research, like here:
http://www.mosel.de/genuss/weinproben.html
(search for "englisch", indicating that they have tours in English)

Thank you both so much. We are renting an apartment, but the owners seem very nice from what I've experienced in our e-mail communication, so it would make sense to ask them for suggestions. I will also do some research online before we leave.

When we were in the Wachau Valley a few years ago we just kind of walked into a winery and schnapps distillery and were offered samples (of course we also bought what we sampled, as they were delicious) but I didn't know if it would be the same practice in the Mosel.

Thanks much!
Tracy

Tracy, some more info:

http://gogermany.about.com/od/region...ineroute_4.htm

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...53C1A964958260

You can probably wander in for tastings but to visit the winery best to call.

Worth reading up about German wines as the rules/principles are very germanic. ~prices in restaurants are normally very low (by the glass) and by the glass may give you access to some wonderful wines (they are not bottle only snobs). You sill also find a fiew wine museums where you can taste 100+ wines for 10 Euro

We've stayed twice at the S.A. Prum (http://www.sapruem.com/home3.0.html) winery/vineyard in Wehlen which is an outskirt of Bernkastel-Kues. If you want a very nice wine tasting I highly recommend it. The owner speaks very good English. Call ahead or email to make an appointment.

Also one thing we stumbled across in Bernkastel-Kues was the vinotek. It's located in the same area as the St. Nikolaus Hospital. You pay a flat fee ~$10 and then you go into the basement (a very large wine cellar) and there are rows and rows of wines to taste. It's self serve, stay as long as you like, wines from all of the local vineyards, and a fun way to spend an afternoon.