Bockenheim marks the northern end of the Deutsche Weinstrasse, and if you have ridden it from the French border you have come about eighty-five kilometres through almost unbroken vineyards. The village has its own counterpart to the stone gate at the southern end: the Haus der Deutschen Weinstrasse, a building that straddles the road like a gatehouse, so you literally ride through it. It is a quieter monument than the one at Schweigen, and the village around it is a working wine place rather than a showpiece, with farmyards, cellars and a few taverns.
The landscape here is softer and more open than further south. The Palatinate Forest has dwindled to low wooded hills on the western horizon, and the land rolls out in long gentle swells toward Rheinhessen, which begins just across the state line to the north. On a clear day you can see across the Rhine plain to the hills of the Odenwald on the far side. It is wide country, good for light: the evening sun comes in low over the vines and catches the dust kicked up by tractors at harvest. The soils change too, from the sandstone of the south to limestone and loess, and growers will tell you that this shows in the wine.
The riding is calm. Roads are narrow but well surfaced, linking villages such as Kindenheim and Obrigheim through the vineyards, with short climbs and plenty of blind farm junctions. It is not a place for speed, and in September and October you will meet grape harvesters, which are tall, slow and occasionally drop mud on corners. If you want something livelier after the long run up the wine road, the small roads west into the Leininger Land, toward Altleiningen and its castle, give you proper woodland curves and a change of scenery.
There is little in Bockenheim itself beyond wine taverns and a bakery, so look to the larger places around it for fuel, such as Grünstadt a few kilometres south or the towns on the main road. Heidesheim, the name on the label, is a nearby town just over the border in Rheinhessen. The local wines are mostly whites, Riesling, Silvaner and Müller-Thurgau, with a growing number of reds, and the taverns open their doors in the warm months with plain local food. Taste in the evening, not between bends: Germany's alcohol limit is strict for new riders, and nobody should be weaving through vineyards on wine.