Great Wine Capital Mainz is a lively city: Many tourists visit this vibrant wine city—and this charming metropolis is frequently chosen as a venue for conventions and conferences. The city’s tourism infrastructure is well-developed—but how do you find the hotspots in the surrounding wine region of Rheinhessen? Where are the professional guides who lead guests to the cultural highlights and the best wineries? It’s simple: Of the roughly 250 specially trained culture and wine ambassadors in Rheinhessen, 15 qualified guides in the tourism group focus specifically on organizing excursions for an eventful day trip!

Hermann Ley from Albig is a retired Air Force officer with experience in logistics and efficient organization. Together with his volunteer colleagues, he has developed sophisticated shore excursion packages for small and large groups.

The services are all precisely defined: duration of the experience, theme, number of wines, scope of the gastronomic offer, price, number of participants, and so on. The formatting of the tourist offers helps everyone involved in this program: tour guides, visitors, tourist offices, tour operators, and wineries know exactly what to expect from the offer and how much it costs.

Take the "wine experience" package, for example—it can be booked in two versions: at the winery or outdoors in the vineyard on a hill with a view.

Guests sit at a long table in the great outdoors, enjoying the view, the food, and the wine! The service is clearly defined: the winemakers have 75 minutes to present at least three wines. The wine tasting must have a theme – for example, "Three Rieslings from three different locations." The accompanying culinary offerings come from the region. Thanks to sophisticated logistics, the "wine experience" also works for larger groups traveling by bus. The requests are sent to Hermann Ley. He then checks which regional guides are responsible and forwards the request. The regional guides contact the wineries – and within a day, they receive feedback on which winery can host the event.

But the tourism group doesn’t just organize wine-tasting experiences: The highlight tours take visitors to the sites and cultural landmarks in “Rheinhessen, where it’s most beautiful”—the historic trullo vineyard cottages, the Fleckenmauer in Flörsheim-Dalsheim, and the most beautiful views of the vineyards. Theme tours are also offered: Medieval Rheinhessen, tours along the Rhine, or to Worms Cathedral. All tours are expertly led by the tourism group’s trained volunteer guides.

The Regional Guides also reach out to wineries and restaurants to provide information about their offerings. Participation is non-binding for these businesses: they register and decide on a case-by-case basis for each inquiry whether they have time to host an event.

And which tourist highlight does Hermann Ley personally like best? “There’s so much to discover—even the locals often don’t know their own region! My highlight is the castle church in Ingelheim; the origins of this late-Gothic fortified church date back to the Middle Ages!”

The Tourism Group of the Rheinhessen Culture and Wine Ambassadors e.V. has earned the Great Wine Capitals Best of Wine Tourism Award 2021 in the “Wine Tourism Service” category because it has succeeded in building a bridge between the city and the countryside!