The German Wine Road starts at a gateway, and this is the gateway: the Deutsches Weintor, a stone arch built in the 1930s that spans the road at the border between Germany and France. Schweigen-Rechtenbach is the southernmost village in the Palatinate, its vineyards running right up to the frontier, and the French town of Wissembourg, with some nine thousand people, lies less than two kilometres away. The Weinstraße, the first signposted wine route in Germany, was opened in 1935, and its length is about eighty-five kilometres.
The countryside is a long, sunny strip between the Palatinate Forest and the Rhine plain, where the hills fall into a band of warm, sheltered slopes. Vines cover almost everything, with sandstone villages tucked between them and small chestnut woods on the high ground. In March the almond trees blossom pink, early for Germany, and in October the leaves turn red and gold, which many people think is the best time to ride. The sunshine here is among the most reliable in the country, though summer can be hot and the light flat at midday.
The road itself is mostly a gentle, flowing country road, going through villages and over small rises, with the odd hairpin up a vineyard slope. Don't expect adrenaline; expect pleasure, with a pause at every second village for coffee or a glass of Riesling, depending on how serious your riding day is. Traffic can be heavy on weekends and during wine festivals, especially in autumn, when tractors and coaches clog the lanes.
Fuel is easy. Wissembourg has stations and shops, as do the larger Palatinate towns a little further north, though small villages like Schweigen-Rechtenbach itself have little. Local specialities include Saumagen, a kind of stuffed pig stomach that the former chancellor Helmut Kohl famously served to visitors, and a light, sharp new wine called Federweißer in the autumn. Park under the gate, take a photograph, and start the road north.