Rüdesheim am Rhein

Celts, then the Ubii and the Mattiaci lived here before the Romans pushed into the Taunus in the 1st century; while they built a fort at Bingen across the river, a bridgehead on the road to the Limes lay near today's Rüdesheim. Alamanni and Franks followed, and finds of glass suggest wine was already grown in the Frankish period. The layout of a Frankish 'clump village' still shows in the old town's streets. Rüdesheim was first named in a document in 1074, when Archbishop Siegfried I of Mainz released the wooded hills of 'Rudensheim and Ibingen' to be cleared for vineyards.

The archbishops of Mainz held the Brömserburg, the oldest castle in what is now the Rhine Gorge World Heritage Site, and the town lived from wine and shipping, especially timber rafting. The land road ended here at the steep riverbank, so traffic heading downstream had to change to boats. French troops damaged the Brömserburg in 1640 during the Thirty Years' War. Rüdesheim received town rights on 1 January 1818, and after Prussia annexed Nassau in 1867 it became a district seat, a role it kept until 1977.

The foundation stone of the Niederwald monument was laid in 1877, and its completion in 1883 drew crowds, first on donkeys, then from 1885 on a cog railway and since 1954 by cable car. Tourism steadily replaced shipping. In 1939 the Nazis absorbed neighbouring Eibingen against its residents' wishes, new housing for refugees followed after the war, and Assmannshausen, Aulhausen and Presberg joined the town in 1977.

Rüdesheim is a showcase of Rhine Romanticism, the 19th-century taste for castles, vineyards and river views that drew painters and writers to the gorge; Goethe lodged in the Adlerturm, and Beethoven, Goethe and Brentano visited the Niederwald temple. The town remains a major attraction, especially for foreign visitors, and the Drosselgasse, with live music in its taverns, is its best-known image.

Wine shapes local identity. The town elects a wine queen and princesses each year, crowned at the August wine festival, who represent Rüdesheim in other wine regions, and the season runs from the Rhine in Flames fireworks in July to the Tage des Federweißen in late autumn. The Rheingau Musik Festival brings classical concerts to Eibingen Abbey and the parish church of St. Jakobus, and a Harley-Davidson rally, Magic Bike, fills the streets around Corpus Christi.

Religious life centres on Hildegard of Bingen, the medieval abbess who founded a convent at Eibingen in 1165. Her shrine is in Eibingen's parish church, the abbey above still bears her name, and pilgrims come on her feast day. Rüdesheim is twinned with Meursault in Burgundy and Swanage in Dorset, and the villages of Juliénas and Oingt in Beaujolais are partnered with Assmannshausen and Presberg.

Rüdesheim is a small town of five quarters — the old centre, Eibingen, Assmannshausen, Aulhausen and Presberg — spread from the riverbank up into the Taunus forest. The centre and Eibingen have grown together since the war, with housing estates built for refugees in 1953 and 1970 and a newer eastern district from 1977, while Aulhausen and Presberg are quiet villages in the hills.

Wine, the Niederwald monument and tourism together shape the town's life and economy, above all in the centre and Assmannshausen. Restaurants and hotels cluster around the Drosselgasse, river boats unload day visitors through the season, and the vineyards on the south-facing slopes are mostly planted with Riesling. Asbach, founded here in 1892, has a visitor centre in the town, though most of the company's operations have moved away. The town belongs to the Rhine-Main transport association's fare zone.

The rhythm is seasonal: crowded lanes, boats and festivals from spring to autumn, then a quieter winter broken by the Christmas market. The terraces between Assmannshausen and Ehrenfels Castle show the pressure on hillside farming — winegrowing there has been almost entirely abandoned because the plots could be reached only on foot.

Rüdesheim's food is the tavern cooking of the Rheingau, eaten alongside a glass of the local wine. The town's best-known contribution is a drink: Rüdesheimer Kaffee, created in 1957 by the television chef Hans Karl Adam. Asbach Uralt brandy and sugar cubes go into a specially designed cup, the brandy is flambéed and stirred until the sugar dissolves, strong coffee is added, and the cup is crowned with whipped cream sweetened with vanilla sugar and scattered with chocolate flakes.

Asbach itself began here in 1892, when Hugo Asbach founded a company selling 'Rüdesheim Cognac'; after the First World War the word cognac could no longer be used, and Asbach Uralt became one of Germany's best-known brandies. The company also makes chocolate.

Wine is the heart of it. Rüdesheim lies in the north-western corner of the Rheingau, where Riesling is the main grape and the wines are mainly high-quality whites, and vineyards on its slopes are recorded as early as 1399. Assmannshausen is the exception, known for Assmannshäuser, a red made from Spätburgunder, the German Pinot noir. The Drosselgasse taverns, the village wine bars and the festivals from summer to the Federweißer days of late autumn are where it is drunk.