Mother Nature used her wintry palette to redefine Luxembourg in mere minutes, lacing its naked boughs and barren lawns with soft, tufted snow. This, too, is wine country.
This was the scene gently unfolding on the morning of Feb. 16 as I arrived by charter bus in the city of Luxembourg, the capital of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, with 15 other members of a European Union study group coming to hear a lecture by Koen Lenaerts, a distinguished judge in the Court of First Instance of the European Court of Justice. His lecture was predictably brilliant and no less so was the wine I enjoyed a few hours later at Caves Krier Freres, an outstanding fourth-generation winery (tel. +352 69-82-82/fax 69-80-98).
The capstone was Marc Krier, the fourth in an unbroken line of Krier Freres wine producers at this much-respected winery with roots dating back some 120 years. Krier Freres vinifies grapes, overwhelmingly white, grown on 54 hectares, 18 hectares of which it owns itself. This places it in the small-medium to medium category.