Berlin Wine Festival

Sunday afternoon we went to the Berlin wine festival. It was inside a Rathaus, or courthouse, with about 300 vendors. (Berlin has lots of courthouses--one for each district.) We discovered that Europeans get rather dressed up for these things. With a 5 euro Pfand for our wine glass we could taste as much as we wanted (and get the 5 euros back at the end!) Additionally, all of the booths had baguette slices (good bye oyster crackers!) and many had fancy olive oil as well as other small snacks to try. The best part is that most of the wines for sale were only 5 or 6 euros a bottle (although this is actually expensive compared to the grocery store 2 euros a bottle). We exercised restraint and didn't buy any this round, but we got lots of brochures, websites, and store addresses. All in all a satisfying afternoon. We're gearing up for the Berlin Film Festival in February--maybe we'll even have a few star sightings :-).