Lately, I’ve been following some local Facebook wine groups, besides the one I run. Thanks to events like the Wiesbaden Wine Festival, I’ve found a few local wines that I really enjoy. When I noticed that the Barth Winery was going to be attending this weekend’s JustWine wine tasting event at the StadtHalle in Hofheim, I told Bill we should pay a visit. I enjoy tasting wines, and I already knew I liked the products by at least one of the attendees.

The JustWine event is continuing today, starting at 1:00pm, and running until 6:00pm. Yesterday, it started at 2:00pm, and ran until 9. I had wanted to go early and maybe have lunch or dinner in Hofheim. Unfortunately, we got held up waiting for an Amazon delivery. I bought Bill an Alexa Echo for his side of the bedroom. I was hoping to pair it with the one on my side, and create stereo sound. I’m still working on making that happen. 🙁 It’s not as easy as it should be.

Because we were waiting for the delivery, we didn’t leave for the wine event until it had been going on for a couple of hours. One nice thing about this event is that it was at the Chinon Center, which has a huge parking garage. That made it much easier to get the wine to the car. We bought fourteen bottles, six of which will be shipped to us. Last May, we went to an event at the Kurhaus in Wiesbaden, and Bill almost killed himself getting the wine to the car, which was parked in a distant garage. Yes… the parking was the best part of the JustWine event. The rest of it impressed me somewhat less.

The entry fee for the JustWine tasting is 8 euros. For that, you get unlimited entry until the event ends for the day. You can taste wines by vendors from France, Italy, and Germany, as well as purchase gourmet food items from the SudTyrol and Hofheim. There was also a D.J. That was a first. I’ve never seen a D.J. at a wine tasting. The music was okay– sort of techno trance instrumentals– but it was turned up kind of loud, which made it hard to hear and be heard. There were also a LOT of people there, so it was hard to actually access the booths. We ended up only going to three before we finally decided to give up and see if we could find dinner in town.

Before we ventured into Hofheim searching for food, we stopped at the Edeka in the mall so I could get some hair conditioner. The guy running the register, Herr Rocky, looked pretty much over it as he asked Bill to put his “Geschlossen” sign on his conveyor belt. It must have been break time… or maybe it was time for him to go home.

Then, after we bought my hair product, we stopped at a couple of restaurants, both of which were totally full. We didn’t make any reservations, because we weren’t expecting to go to the event as late as we did. It looked like everybody was out in Hofheim last night, which is understandable. Less than year ago, things were still pretty locked down in Germany. Since I already had indigestion, I told Bill that we should just go home.

So that’s what we did… and I was soon confronted again with Alexa, and her reluctance to pair properly in our bedroom. Bill has to go away this week, so hopefully I’ll figure out how to get the speakers doing my bidding before he comes back Friday– temporarily– until he has to go away again for another three days. On the plus side, Arran and Noyzi were overjoyed to see us. Arran, in particular, was running around with unbridled joy. He has that big tumor on his side, and it seems to hurt when we touch it. Yet he still has the ability and the will to greet us with so much enthusiasm. He amazes me every day.

I might have enjoyed the JustWine event more if we had gotten there sooner, when it was probably much less crowded. We probably would have found food, too. There was food at the event, but nowhere to really sit, or even stand, because there were so many people there. Personally, I think they should have scrapped the disc jockey and put in a few more tables.

I did at least get to buy some sparkling Rieslings from the Barth Winery and introduced myself to Axel, the guy who represented the Barth Winery and alerted me to the event in the first place. He’s very active on Facebook and speaks perfect English.

I got a kick out of Axel, because as we approached his table, he was dealing with a very petite young Asian lady who seemed to be putting him through his paces. She also seemed to be a little bit “lit”. She ended up buying a bottle of sparkling rose before she stumbled off, looking a little bit cross. Maybe it’s because she understands Armenian or Spanish, as I used words from both languages to describe her rather familiar demeanor to Bill. I know… shame on me. But she was kind of hogging Axel’s attention, and it looked like maybe he could use an assist.

Anyway, I’m not sorry we got out of the house and went to the JustWine event. It was a little too loud and crowded for my tastes, but it was definitely a unique affair. And we did pick up some wines, which I will be avoiding during Bill’s TDY. I like to temporarily get off the sauce when he’s not home.

Below are some photos…