German Food Pictures

Germany's quality wine producer's association, the VDP (that'd be short for Verband Deutscher Pradikats- und Qualitatsweinguter), hosted its yearly tasting of wines in Wiesbaden, a historic spa town outside Frankfurt. This year, it unveiled 365 wines from the 2011 vintage that were designated as "great growth" wines. Our press junket was among the first to taste those wines.

This highly efficient, organized wine-tasting was unlike any I'd ever attended. Tasters (who were sent the extensive wine list in advance) were assigned seating in a quiet room lined with long rows of tables, and could request flights of six wines to servers waiting on hand for new orders. Admiring the scene, acclaimed wine writer Jancis Robinson wrote that it was "a miracle of wine service."