RHINE WINE.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20587, 1 July 1932, Page 16

RHINE WINE.

ANNUAL AUCTION. JOHANNISBERG, May 27. Aliß tourist who travels along the Rhine in May and June will find the annual wine auctions in full swing at many places, with renowned names. Buyers from all over Germany and even from other countries come to sample the vintages. There is no charge for admission, and such a sale is an interesting spectacle even for the observer. One of the most important centres of the wine industry is Johannisberg, on the eastern bank of the Rhine some ten miles above Bingen, above which stands the Johannisberg Castle. The sunny vineyards on the slopes at its feet are the cradle of the Johannisberger Schlossweine, famous the world over. The castle, originally an ancient Benedictine monastery, received its present form some 200 years ago. As a result of the general secularisation of church propertv in 1803 it came to the house of Nassau-Orange, and Napoleon gave it to his Marshal Kellermann a few years later. At the Vienna Congress of 1815, it came into the possession of the Emperor Franz of Austria, who presented it in the following year to his Chancellor, Prince Mettercich, with the provision that a tenth of the wine produced by its vineyards must be given to the Emperor. The castle is still in the possession of the descendants of Prince Metternich, and the tithe is still handed over to the imperial wine cellar in Vienna. The Austrian tithing commission comes to Johannisberg every year to select the wines desired. The wine auction in the Johannisberg Castle, which is held in the great festival hall, Is one of the most interesting of the many along the Rhine. Tho situation of the great building adds to the pleasure of a visit, for one has from the terrace and the balcony of the castle a beautiful panorama of the so-r-alled ''Rheingau." reaching from the great statue of Germania near Rudesheim past Geisenheim, Mittelheim, Hattenheim, and other noted wine centres to Erbach and Eltville. On the loftv Rochusberg on the other side is a chapel renowed as a place of pilgrimage, and beyond it the wooded hills of the Palatinate can be seen. •