Wine: Besigheimer Felsengarten Samtrot Spätlese

Yesterday I was passing a supermarket in Stuttgart, and I went in to buy this wine on impulse. I wanted to drink something different. The wines from Besigheimer Felsengarten are sold in most large supermarkets, so I looked at their selection first.

Samtrot is one of the sweetest grapes, and the Spätlese (late harvest) is the sweetest variation, because the grapes are left on the vine longer. This is a natural sweetness, not to be compared with the artificial sweetness of the wines made in central Germany.

So what do the experts have to say about it?

"Warm brick red, fruity, light, gentle aroma of blackberries, mild acidity".

I don't understand that. I rarely understand what the experts say with their fancy words. All I can say is that this wine has an overwhelming taste, sweet but with underlying power. I can recommend it to anyone who wants an introduction to German wines.

I used to drink the wines of Besigheimer Felsengarten more often than any other wine. Then I stopped abruptly. There was a reason. In my village there was a supermarket called Cap. It's a chain that employs people with mental handicaps. All the employees apart from the manager are mentally handicapped. Obviously, the employees are less efficient than usual workers, so the stores have to be subsidised by the towns where they're located.

About two years ago a refugee home was built in my village. The council wrote a letter to Cap saying that the social budget was exhausted, so they couldn't subsidise the supermarket for the next two years. As a result, the supermarket was forced to close.

I could no longer buy my favourite wines locally. The mentally handicapped people lost their jobs, and they've had to go back to sitting all day staring at the wall in their institutions.

This is an aspect of the German refugee crisis that not many people know about.