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We met up with my cousin about an hour after the sun went down for some Thai beers at a Mexican restaurant and sat on the AstroTurf patio downing beer like it was…well, beer in the hot Bangkok night. We ordered one after another until it was finally time to move on. Johannes got up […]

It was already dark, but still so warm and humid as the lights of Bangkok lit the narrow side streets we walked down, following my cousin and his girlfriend to a restaurant that we probably couldn’t find our way back to for a million bucks. We walked past Thais sitting outside, enjoying some street food, […]

My cousin somehow ended up living in Bankok via Los Angeles, Alabama and Australia. I am sure it’s a long story.  But we felt obligated — ok, and very excited — to visit and take advantage of his travel tips on our way back to Germany. Bangkok, AKA Krung Thep Maha Nakhon, sits over the Chao Praya […]

I didn’t forget Brisbane! After a little edit, here is a bit about the east coast Aussie city. Here goes: Brisbane was very reminiscent of Southern California, only with Kangaroos.  As the highest populated city in Queensland and the third most in Australia, the city straddles Brisbane River, which empties about 9 miles away at the Moreton Bay. […]

Home Sweet Home   Harvester; totally power rangers, right? Ten tons of Gewürtztraminer – first fruit of the crush in the middle of the night   The Office     Johannes – Crush Control   Jenny – Punchdown Princess   View from the top of the 5-ton fermentors, trying not to breathe too deep. CO2 […]

We pulled the slightly dirtier-than-when-we-left Falcon into the dirt lot by our double wide.  The winemaker and our new boss, Stefan, was probably slightly surprised to see us return (alive), although we looked a bit battered, bitten by sand flies, unshowered, and slightly hungover.  Your interns are back!! We started the next day, 60 TONS of […]

We were bummed to leave Queenstown.  We could imagine in just a few months how the scene would turn from boating and water sports on the lake to skiers and boarders carving down the snow-capped purple mountains. But it was only a vision. We didn’t have time to wait around; we had some quality sun […]

Queenstown is an adventure junkie’s dream. The place has every activity bound to get you outside and shoot you up with an adrenaline high. I mean, it’s the home of bungee-jumping for Pete’s sake – and they are damn proud of it. On a lake surrounded by mountains, Queenstown is full of both winter sports […]

We only stopped off the road for Pegasus Bay on our way to Queenstown and Central Otago. We walked through the door and into a German conversation between our host and her cousin. Sometimes even all the way across the world can feel like home. The first wine, a Sauvignon Blanc/Semillion was done in the […]

We packed our co-worker, Tony’s 1991 Ford Falcon station wagon with our backpacks and left for Marlborough with the parting words in his best Kiwi accent: ‘it doesn’t lock, but don’t worry, do what I do – whenever I bring my kayak out, I just back up to a wall so no one can steal […]

As the early winter made itself at home on the Mosel River, experts were saying it was going to be a long, dark and cold winter, perhaps the most so in history. We were living in the house next to Johannes’ family, lucky because his mom made a delicious lunch (the biggest meal of the […]

The 18 months in between was a long and short time. Johannes finished studying, granting him a major in Viticulture and Enology from Geisenheim, and went on to work for a large winery in the Mosel Valley as a general manager. Meanwhile, I went to manage a small tasting room for a Sonoma-based winery in […]