New wine tourism guide for Franconia: "Einkehren in Weinfranken".
If you want to travel to Franconia not only for its landscape and culture, but also as a lover of Franconian wines, Joachim Peukert's book "Einkehren in Franken" is a wine travel guide with an almost encyclopaedic quality. On 340 pages, journalist Joachim Peukert has undertaken to "make the wine cultural landscape of the Lower Main or Main quadrangle even better known and more popular".
A wealth of material from two years of research
The description of the Mainviereck from Michelbach to Homburger Kallmuth - i.e. the western entrance to the Franconian wine region, which is predominantly characterised by red sandstone - is the prelude to a three-volume series which, under the motto "Einkehren in Weinfranken - bei Woi', Worscht und Weck", is to serve as a further literary travel vademecum through Franconia, which is so multifaceted in terms of landscape and oenology. In two years of research, Joachim Peukert, a native Franconian from Wasserlos near Alzenau, visited and described in detail vintners, wineries and winegrowers' cooperatives, inns and hotels, as well as classic sights such as churches, castles and medieval villages and town centres. A map excerpt in front of the one- to two-page portraits of the individual places serves for quick spatial orientation. For culinary orientation, the typical Franconian "Häckerwirtschaften" are presented as well as traditional restaurants, country inns and sophisticated hotels. For hiking enthusiasts, there are recommendations such as the "Red Wine Hiking Trail in Churfranken" from Großwallstadt to Bürgstadt and the "Churfrankensteig" between Erlenbach am Main and Klingenberg.
Häckerwirtschaften and VDP establishments in one volume
"Einkehren in Weinfranken" is dedicated not only to the producers of simple wines and average quality wines, but also to the top wines produced in Franconia, not least by the 28 Franconian member wineries of the Association of German Prädikat Wine Estates (VDP). All four VDP wineries located in the Maindreieck are included in the book: the wineries Stadt Klingenberg and Bernhard Höfler (Michelbach) as well as Fürst (Bürgstadt) and Löwenstein (Kreuzwertheim), which, as members of the Trias-Frankenwein Group, are also dedicated to producing terroir-driven wines from the Triassic soils (red sandstone in the western Mainviereck, shell limestone in the central Maindreieck and Keuper in the eastern Steigerwald). Peukert's extensive hard work obviously also included motivating some producers of simple as well as sophisticated wines to participate in this wine tourism guide: The author describes in his epilogue that it was by no means easy to win customers for his project: "telephone enquiries were mostly doomed to failure from the start." It is thanks to Peukert's persistence that both the Franconian Winegrowers' Association and the Franconian Tourism Association have another thoroughly researched contribution to Franconia's wine tourism literature in the year of the 350th anniversary of the Silvaner.
A list of all wine festivals, wine recommendations for meals, important addresses and further literature can be found in the extensive appendix. This also includes an overview chapter on the "History of Franconian Viticulture", which is unfortunately a little too short - also with regard to the type and distribution of grape varieties; numerous details on local viticultural history can be found in the descriptions of individual well-known wine villages such as Hörstein (Alzenau) or Großostheim. Further information on the Triassic soils, which are so important for Franconian wine, the Silvaner ("our Franconian identity") and the terroir as the "sum of the whole" is provided in the appendix by wine consultant Dr. Hermann Kolesch from the Bavarian State Institute for Viticulture and Horticulture (Veitshöchheim), one of the best experts on Franconian terroirs.
Little information on cycle tourism
The new book series explicitly addresses "connoisseurs of Franconian grape juice". However, these people - not only in times of more sustainable tourism - also like to discover wine culture landscapes by bike. The Franconian wine region, with its routes along the Main, is particularly suitable for this. The Main Cycle Route (www.mainradweg.com) is one of the most popular long-distance cycle routes and was awarded the highest rating of five stars by the ADFC (Allgemeiner Deutscher Fahrradclub), the only quality cycle route to date. However, Peukert's book contains only sporadic information about the possibilities of bicycle tourism, route tips, bicycle rental stations and bicycle-friendly "Bed & Bike" establishments along the Main. The information for wine-tourist cyclists could certainly be added in a new edition of the first volume, and taken into account from the outset in subsequent volumes. The extension of the index to include an alphabetical index, not only divided into places and categories, would further increase the usefulness of this already practical guide, which offers a high level of information.
The second volume will be devoted to the Franconian Maindreieck with a focus on "Würzburg and Kitzingen" (publication date probably spring 2011), the concluding third volume will cover the region "Around Iphofen" (Steigerwald).
Joachim Peukert: "Einkehren in Weinfranken. With Woi', Worscht and Weck'. Volume 1: From Michelbach to Homburg am Main". VDS - Verlagsdruckerei Schmidt: Neustadt an der Aisch, 2009. 340 pages. With 261 colour illustrations, including numerous maps. Softcover. Format: 14.8 cm x 21.0 cm. Price: 19,90 Euro. ISBN: 978-3-87707-718-4.