2018-06-24 Alsace Wine Route Baiersbronn to Domaine Xavier Muller

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Motorhome Route Baiersbronn to Domaine Xavier Muller

Alsace Wine Route by Motorhome

As I write my journal here at Domaine Xavier Muller sat in bed in our Hymer motorhome it’s hard to remember everything that we have done today. A contributory factor must be the amount of wine that we tasted courtesy of Monsieur Muller, a very affable man who loves wine and sharing it with others.

At Baiersbronn we watched other motorhomes come and go, that’s always intensely interesting or frustrating depending on your viewpoint. Today we watched a youngish couple trying to park a massive Neismann & Bishoff motorhome, with what can only be described as limited success. When they opened up their garage at the rear of the vehicle it was packed with crates of fizzy drinks. Another couple arrived, parked, moved, parked and moved again before settling on a place to stay. My main criteria for pitch selection has more to do with levelness and quietness than anything else. View is important, but levelness trumps it every time.

Serviced the Hymer, filled up with fresh water again, before heading off and filling up with diesel at €1.289 a litre, another good price.

We took the narrow mountain roads towards Baden Baden, stopped for lunch then descended from the hills into France. I find it quite exciting to be able to move from one country to another so easily on the european mainland. Our UK minds are conditioned by our island mentality, and that piece of water that sits between us and europe. That water has served us well in the past, protecting us from invasion but it also makes travel and transport harder.

We made our way to Marlenheim, in France, but with German-sounding names, most likely the border has moved many times in the past. We had some difficulty reaching the town because of a 2.5m headroom bridge, our Hymer is 3m so there was no way we could pass through.

Our first wine tasting was at Domaine Xavier Muller, where Monsieur Muller himself conducted the proceedings. Monsieur Muller’s English is good, but we did wander into french at times. Monsieur Muller is the boss here, and he obviously loves wine and especially tasting and sharing wine with others. We tasted a wide selection of wines, some we loved, others we not for us, but we purchased 18 bottles, spending nearly €200. This is wine that will never appear in the UK supermarkets and of excellent quality we have to remember that the UK taxes wine VERY heavily.

An excellent day, Monsieur Muller says that very few English visit, it’s mostly Germans and Dutch people. We were the only motorhome staying overnight at Domaine Muller, which has a large area available for car and motorhome parking.