the Boppard Riesling an unmistak-able flavour and the wonderful taste experience for the wine connoisseur. However, the best of sites could not produce a wine of such high quality without the passionate commitment and know-how of local winegrowers who know very well how to bring forth jewels of taste from their wines. Work in the Bopparder Hamm vineyards is still a matter of manual skill among the wines on the steep slopes of the moun-tain. Anyone coming along at any time of the year will see the winegrower busy pruning, bin-ding the vines and carrying out leaf and grape care. Walks and rambles through the Boppard Hamm lead directly to the nurs-ery of the grape, which will one day produce the fully ripe fruit for wine. A highlight of wine rese-arch and wine cultivation is the 'Middle Rhine Wine Spring' which takes place every year on the last Sunday in April and offers a selection of good wine and culi-nary delights. Around a dozen vintners alternately offer small delicacies to eat and drink for a very special sensual Rhine and wine experience. The highlight of the Boppard wine event is the annual Wine Festival at the end of September and the beginning of October. Throughout the year however there are comfortable winegrowing activities, the cozy courtyard festivals and of course many individual wine tastings directly at the vineyard, whose aromatic vines are followed by locals and guests alike. Winegrowing Winegrowing Wine and the Middle Rhine are inseparable, and at no better place than at the gates of the town of Boppard can one enjoy the majestic green of the vine here at Bopparder Hamm, a vine that produces a very fine, exclusive wine to delight the spirit. The vineyards of Bopparder Hamm, which dominate the banks of the Rhine as it flows northwest, are visual proof of Boppard's reputation as the home of a very special winegrow-ing area. The incline facing south enjoys an ideal angle to the sun, is able to utilise the river's surface as thermal storage and is well protected from the west and from the east, and so benefits from this 'mini-climate' constel-lation of circumstance. In short, it constitutes the optimum envi-ronment 20 – 21 for the cultivation of excellent wine. Bopparder Hamm vineyard covers an area of 75 hec-tares and thus is the largest single vineyard on the central Rhine. It is divided up into individually cultivated areas such as Elfenlay, Fässerlay, Weingrube, Mandel-stain, Feuerlay, Ohlenberg and Engelstein. The uncontested star among the wines is the Riesling, which, because of the deep, wide-ly distributed slate content in the primordial soil here produces a wine of distinctive character. Typical aromas such as apple, mint and other diverse herbs give Bopparder Hamm