It’s a given that the wines of Luxembourg are delicious: grapes for wine have been grown in this country for over 2,000 years, so, winemakers here
obviously know what they’re doing. Taste aside; moving to
Luxembourg last year, I immediately discovered two wonderful reasons to drink Luxembourgish wine.
First of all, wine is bigger in Luxembourg. Oh yes, you read that correctly: in one of the world’s smallest countries and the only Grand Duchy on the planet, the wine is bottled in 100ml bottles that are 25 percent larger than a normal wine bottle. Which makes your lovely dinner last about 25 percent longer. (Don’t worry, it’s available in normal 75ml bottles, too.) We’re talking co-operative produced table wine in big bottles here, but it’s tasty, crisp and refreshing and – to get to the second reason I love Luxembourgish wine – it is so much easier for me to recycle. Instead of walking my grocery cart full of empty jars and wine bottles all the way down the street, nearly a full mile, to the nearest recycle bin like I normally do, I can just skip to the grocery store two minutes around the corner with my giant empties. (Score!)
Alima grocery stores in Luxembourg Ville have a large, boxy green machine, usually near the registers, where you can insert your empty 100ml wine bottles and – voila! – out pops a coupon refunding the 20 cent bottle deposit that you didn’t even realize that you paid because the wine was so inexpensive to begin with. You can use the coupon toward groceries. Or toward more giant bottles of wine.
Oh, and did I mention that these giant bottles can be purchased for less than 5€ each?
(Keep reading and you’ll get a primer on Luxembourg wine, and a heads up on two can’t-miss wine festivals taking place in September.)