Stuttgarter Weindorf

I realized that I forgot to write about a few fests we went to in September.  "Weindorf" directly translates to "Wine Village."  The Stuttgarter Weindorf is held in downtown Stuttgart every year for two weeks in late August/early September.  This year, we were able to go there for lunch on Labor Day.  It was perfect timing because Jim was off of work but Drew's German Kindergarten was still in session!

Each stand is decorated as if it were a little restaurant--very charming!

Ralph's Schlosslaube had a huge wine barrel in which you could sit to eat.  I could imagine that this would be a very popular spot to eat when the wine fest was in full swing at night.

The guy working at Ralph's was Irish!  He was happy to speak English with us and tell us about how he came to work for this wine company in Germany.

Look who's happy to be sitting in a giant wine barrel at Weinfest!

Our strategy was to try a dish at a few different stands.  The meal below was DELICIOUS!  It was a knödel (dumpling) in a pfifferlinge sauce.  Pfifferlinge is a type of mushroom that is in season during this time of year.

Here they are cooking the pfifferlinge.

 Next we tried the "dampfnudel."  It was a sweet bread dumpling in a vanilla sauce with chocolate sprinkles, served warm.

Dampfnudel

The stand below had a "neuer süßer wein" (new sweet wine) that we tried. New sweet wine is actually not wine at all, but juice that has not yet fermented.

"Wine" of choice for the DD

Snoozing away

At the last stand, we tried maultaschen soup and potato pancakes with apple sauce.

What a great way to spend a day off together.  Prost!