German Wine Route
| German Wine Route | |
|---|---|
 At the southern beginning: the German Wine Gate |
|
| Logo: |
|
| Information sign: |
|
| Length: | about 85 km |
| State: | Rhineland-Palatinate |
| Region: | Weinstrasse ( Vorderpfalz ) |
| Course direction: | approximately south-north |
| Start: |
Schweigen-Rechtenbach ( German Wine Gate ) |
| The End: |
Bockenheim ( House of the German Wine Route ) |
| Altitude: | at 150 m above sea level NHN |
 At the northern end: the house of the German Wine Route |
|
The German Wine Route is one of the oldest tourist roads in Germany and runs on or parallel to federal roads 38 and 271 through the wine-growing region of the Palatinate , which is located in the region of the same name in the southeast of Rhineland-Palatinate and is the second largest wine-growing region in Germany .
The road is about 85 km long and runs from south to north. It begins at the German Wine Gate in Schweigen-Rechtenbach on the French border and ends at the House of the German Wine Route in Bockenheim on the outskirts of Rheinhessen .
geography
The German Wine Route is located in the hilly landscape of the front and south of the Palatinate , the main part of the German Wine Route holiday region created by tourism marketing . Geologically, it represents part of the western fracture stage of the rift valley in which the Upper Rhine flows. The fracture zone is bounded in the west by the eastern edge of the Palatinate Forest , the Haardt , in the east lies the Upper Rhine Plain . The width of the hilly landscape is up to 15 km, its altitude fluctuates around 150 m above sea level. NHN .
At the beginning of the German Wine Route, on the border with Alsace in France, the German Wine Gate has stood since 1936, and at the end of the German Wine Route since 1995, towards Rheinhessen . There are numerous well-known wine towns along the route. Many carry the addition "on the Weinstrasse", which has consistently replaced the previous attribute "on the Haardt". The communities on the Weinstrasse are identified in the article about the wine-growing region of the Palatinate .
Sometimes inner-city streets on which the German Wine Route runs still bear the street name Weinstrasse , which was prescribed at the time of the establishment , e.g. B. in the districts Hambach and Diedesfeld of Neustadt an der Weinstrasse or in the district town of Bad Dürkheim .
The German Wine Route is marked by a sign with a square yellow logo, which shows a triangular, stylized bunch of grapes made up of ten berries between the two parts of the name “Deutsche” and “Weinstrasse” .
Climate and vegetation
Almond blossom near Gimmeldingen
Vineyards against the backdrop of the wine region
Vineyards near Pleisweiler
Southern wine route near Gleisweiler
With over 1800 hours of sunshine annually, the area has the German Wine Route, a climate that is almost to the Mediterranean recalls countries, sometimes the area is even called " Tuscany advertised in Germany". As a result of the mild climate, figs, kiwis, pines, cypresses, palms, bananas and chestnuts thrive here. The wine route is also known for the almond trees that stand to the right and left of the route and usually begin to bloom pink or white here at the end of February / beginning of March. Then the almond blossom festival is celebrated in Gimmeldingen .
The typical plant on the German Wine Route, however, is the grapevine , which almost exclusively characterizes regional agriculture . Introduced by the Romans shortly after the turn of the Christian era , the vine found ideal conditions here: warmth, as mentioned, poor rainfall due to the Palatinate Forest upstream to the west, mitigation of late night frosts due to the slopes, which accelerate the flow of cold air masses into the Rhine plain.
economy
German Wine Route holiday region
The German Wine Route is now a term that, like the Bergstrasse on the opposite side of the Rhine, is not only a name for a street, but which has also established itself as a brand name for the German Wine Route Holiday Region; it is also a catchphrase for tourism , which in this area has always been closely related to viticulture. For those in the Southern Palatinate - located south half of the German Wine Route of the 20th century in the last quarter marked a separate additional marketing term Southern Wine Route of starting with renaming the district Landau-Bad Bergzabern in the district of Southern Wine Road on January 1, 1978th
In Neustadt-Diedesfeld is the middle of the Weinstrasse with the address Weinstrasse 612 , it is advertised as a bed and breakfast .
Parallel to the German Wine Route runs as Radfernweg the cycle path German Wine Route . Like the autostraße, it begins in Schweigen-Rechtenbach and ends in Bockenheim. It has a length of 95 km; there are also 35 km of additional “panorama routes” that include sideways destinations.
The Palatinate wine trail is 170 km in length and eleven reported daily stages the longest premium hiking in the Palatinate. It leads in a south-north direction from Schweigen-Rechtenbach to Bockenheim. The hiking route that was opened in spring 2011 changes back and forth between the wine-growing region on the German Wine Route and the eastern part of the Palatinate Forest.
Since 1985 - with the exception of 1986 - the German Wine Road Adventure Day has been held on the last Sunday in August . The Wine Route will be closed to motorized traffic for eight hours . Many clubs and wineries run wine taverns along the wine route on this day , and depending on the weather, up to 300,000 cyclists and inline skaters take advantage of the offer for an excursion.
Wine festivals
Numerous wine festivals take place between March and October . The biggest are the Dürkheimer Wurstmarkt (in September), the German Wine Harvest Festival in Neustadt an der Weinstrasse, where the German Wine Queen is elected, and the Festival of Federweiss in Landau (both in October). Supra-regional charisma have z. B. also the Gimmeldinger almond blossom festival (in March or April), the Kändelgassenfest in Großkarlbach , the city wall festival in Freinsheim (both in July), the Deidesheim billy goat auction on Tuesday after Whitsun or - on two weekends in June / July - the donkey skin festival in Mußbach . The official wine festival calendar, which is published every year and lists all wine festivals as well as other events in the holiday region, is part of the standard equipment of many people from the Palatinate and those interested in socializing.
Unfamiliar to strangers are the glasses from which wine is drunk at the festivals along the German Wine Route . In contrast to other wine-growing regions, not 0.25 liter glasses, but 0.5 liter glasses. Typical for this are the so-called dub glasses ( Palatine for “dab glasses”), which taper from top to bottom and have round recesses on the outside, the “dubbe”.
Sports
The German Wine Road marathon has been held every second spring since 1998 and is also held as a half marathon . The route leads from Bockenheim to Bad Dürkheim and back. The patron is the Prime Minister of Rhineland-Palatinate Malu Dreyer .
history
German Wine Route
Since 1935, the German Wine Route has crossed the wine-growing region of what was then the "Rheinpfalz", which is now only called "Pfalz", making it the oldest of the wine routes in this country.
After the First World War , the economy in the German wine-growing regions was controlled by the French occupation authorities between 1918 and 1930 . France restricted trade in the free territory because of the economic barriers of the Versailles Treaty . In addition, German wines were extremely poorly known in France. After a wine harvest in the Palatinate in 1934 that was two and a half times the average, there was a dramatic fall in prices in the region, which put many winegrowers in financial distress. In addition, the vintners, who were not yet self-marketing, were dependent on the wine merchants. These, in turn, were often Jews and were ousted by the Nazi administration, which is why many winegrowers had sales difficulties. With the establishment of the German Wine Route in 1935, the National Socialist rulers succeeded in increasing tourism and wine sales within a short period of time without incurring large costs; the effect continues to this day. The name of the German Wine Route was given to the street that connected most of the wine-growing communities along the Haardt, and all of the through-towns on this route were renamed the Wine Route . The villages on the new German Wine Route could from now on have the addition on the Wine Route .
The first suggestions for the term Weinstrasse came from the winery owner Friedrich von Bassermann-Jordan and from his close friend, the publisher Daniel Meininger , in his magazine Die Pfalz am Rhein on May 15, 1932. Bassermann-Jordan brought the route between Neustadt an der Haardt and Herxheim am Berg as the Palatinate Wine Route in the 1920s . Nazi Gauleiter Josef Bürckel took up this term again in July 1935 in view of the economic hardship of the Palatinate winegrowers and put it into practice quickly and decisively. The term German Wine Route , which set other German wine regions back, was granted to Bürckel by the Nazi rulers because of his services in the Saar vote on January 13, 1935. Another reason for Bürckel's haste was the imminent introduction of “wine sponsorships” by the Reichsnährstand with others Cities and municipalities that required the purchase of a certain amount of Palatine wine. Holiday trips organized by the Nazi tour operator Kraft durch Freude also took the strain off the Palatinate winemakers .
On October 10, 1935, a tour took place on the chosen route, during which the road sections that were in poor condition were directly repaired. Gauleiter Bürckel opened the German Wine Route with a ceremony on October 19, 1935 in Bad Dürkheim. His speech was entitled "Struggle and People - Wine and Truth". On October 20, a Sunday on which the festival of grapes and wine was celebrated across Germany, an opening trip from Schweigen to Bockenheim followed on the German Wine Route, in which around 300 vehicles took part under the leadership of the Gauleiter. For the opening - the controlled press wrote of “consecration” - a wooden dummy gate was erected in Silence and one made of paper mache in Grünstadt . In 1936, a stone wine gate was built in Silence instead of the temporary wooden structure. The originally planned northern wine gate in Bockenheim was not built until 1995 after six decades and in a less massive form: the house of the German Wine Route .
The spectacular opening was followed by a number of additional projects that were only partially implemented. The folk art department of the Palatinate State Trade Organization in Kaiserslautern designed uniform signage, which was never installed. In January 1937, gave the invocation "At each house a branch" to decorate the German Wine Road with matching grape varieties, which the mayors for their places in the fruit and wine school (Neustadt on the Wine Route, now DLR ) had to order.
Other tourist wine routes
Before modern means of transport made it possible to combine tourism and the marketing of wine, the German word "Weinstrasse" was a polished form of " Wagenstrasse ", and medieval wine routes ran through areas without significant viticulture. The establishment of the Arad Wine Route Railway in 1906, which in Hungarian was called " Arad Wine Route Railway", makes it clear that wine routes were already being established back then to open up wine-growing areas for tourism.
Since 1953, the Alsace Wine Route ( French Route des vins d'Alsace ) has existed in France, so to speak, as a southern continuation of the German Wine Route . The Route Touristique du Champagne is presented in German as the Champagne Tourist Route .
There is a cross-border partnership between the Bad Dürkheim district , in which the northern part of the German Wine Route is located, and the South Tyrolean Wine Route established in Italy ( Strada del Vino dell'Alto Adige in Italian ) in 1964 .
Over the years, numerous other wine routes have been identified in other wine regions in Germany and abroad:
|
|
literature
- Günther List (ed.): "Germans, let the wine's electricity pour into the whole empire!" The Palatinate people and their wine route - a contribution to alternative cultural studies . Wunderhorn, Heidelberg 1985, ISBN 978-3-88423-036-7 ( table of contents ).
Films (selection)
- Germany's dream streets. The wine route. Documentary, Germany, 2015, 43:04 min., Script and director: Franziska Boeing, production: ecomedia, ZDF , arte , series: Deutschlands Traumstraßen , first broadcast: April 17, 2015 on arte, synopsis by ARD , online video.
- The coup of the Gauleiter - the birth of the German Wine Route. Documentary film, Germany, 2016, 29:45 min., Script and director: Julia Melan, production: SWR , series : known in the country , first broadcast: October 23, 2016 on SWR television , summary by ARD .
- On the German Wine Route - people and tracks along a holiday route. Documentary, Germany, 2017, 44:53 min., Script and director: Andreas Berg, production: Eikon Südwest , SWR , first broadcast: October 23, 2017 on SWR TV, synopsis by ARD , online video available until October 22, 2018 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ House on the middle of the Weinstrasse. ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: pfalz.de , accessed on September 17, 2015.
- ↑ a b The coup of the Gauleiter - The birth of the German Wine Route. In: ARD / SWR , October 23, 2016, see online video ( memento from March 26, 2017 in the Internet Archive ).
- ↑ cf. Paul Schädler : 75 years of the German Wine Route. In: Association of German Wine Brotherhoods e. V. , November 7, 2010, accessed on March 25, 2017 (PDF; 8 pp., 263 KB), p. 5.
- ↑ a b c German Wine Route . In: NSZ Rheinfront . Ludwigshafen October 21, 1935.
- ↑ a b Ingenious idea with a problematic origin . In: The Rhine Palatinate . Ludwigshafen August 7, 2010.
- ↑ Wine Route: Is the name older? In: The Rhine Palatinate . Ludwigshafen August 20, 2010.
- ↑ Useful & interesting links. In: Südtiroler Weinstrasse , accessed on September 17, 2015.
