Fall is here, and I might not have even noticed if it hadn’t been for the Federweißer—a new wine, sold in open bottles mid-fermentation. It’s sweet like apple juice, with a delicious yeasty tone that lingers pleasantly on your tongue after every sip.

We were in a tiny village outside of Mainz when the subject came up. Was there Federweißer already? Or was it too early even for new wine? “Well why don’t we just walk over to the winery and find out,” my friend’s father said—a sentence that made me swoon for small-town Germany once again.

I grew up in small town in America, a small town full of trees and cows and cornfields. There were tractors on the road and hunting trophies on the walls of my friends’ homes. Houses were built of wood, and my best friends lived at least 30 minutes away by car.

Small-town Germany offers up a stark contrast to the small-town life I know. Tilting half-timber houses line streets so narrow I hold my breath every time the bus turns into town. (The fact that there is public transportation in such a small place at all is almost as shocking.) In this part of the country small town farming communities are based around wine production, surrounded by fields of grapes instead of cows and corn plants. Wine, through its intoxicating nature, is simply more romantic, more sophisticated, in word and in deed, than cow piles.

In my home town I couldn’t walk anywhere—there weren’t even any sidewalks. But that evening we left the house with a box of empty bottles from the winery and strolled down the narrow streets’ narrow sidewalks, passing two other wineries on the way. In the hills over the houses were rows and rows of grape vines, tethered neatly in the fenced rows that make the harvest easier.

Grape vines in Rhineland – Pfalz , Photo: k.h.jung / Rheinland- Rfalz Tourismus GmbH

I had been expecting a little shop, but was met with a tiny room filled with tables and people and laughter. They sold wine, and dinner, and half the town was there, chattering at each other down long tables while eating and drinking. It was loud, full of movement and color—the secret life of the little towns that many people quickly stereotype as dull before heading off for the bigger cities. The atmosphere would be familiar to anyone who’s ever spent time in a small town—everyone knew everyone, and every gaze followed the newcomers curiously from the door to the bar.

The owner (who was also the waiter, and the winemaker) told us that tonight the Federweißer wasn’t quite ready, and in the morning it would be perfect. But we could, of course, try it out anyway. He disappeared into the basement to fetch us a glass. It was delicious, and we went home with a bottle to ring in the official start of fall.

The only thing missing that evening was Federweißer’s traditional companion—onion cake. New wine I could understand, you might be saying to yourself, but a cake with onions? Well, it was a new concept to me too, but rather than being a sweet cake, it is a thin quiche-like pastry, piled high with onions. Not only is it delicious, but it is the perfect companion to Federweißer, the heralds of the start of the fall season.

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