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I had never been to Germany. Never wanted to go there. Had some big personal issues with the country. But when I was invited on a tour focusing on the power of women in the German wine industry, I thought this might be the time to put my sour feelings aside. Besides, Riesling is my favourite grape variety. And I'm a hopeless lush.

Driving out of Frankfurt's city core, I spot chic restaurants and pedestrian walks, beer houses and bridges, bikers and boaters. Industrial zones appear, but soon emerald-green vineyards creep up, richly carpeting steep riverside embankments. This is Rheinhessen, the country's largest wine-producing region. The Rheinhessen, Rheingau and Pfalz regions in Germany's lush southwestern corner are just a grape's throw from France.

Within 30 minutes we arrive at Staatliche Weinbaudomane Oppenheim -- a winery, research centre and wine school, which is currently instructing more than 300 budding oenophiles. It reminds me of Ontario's Niagara-on-the-Lake with its rose gardens, ivy and slate. Our host, Simone Renth, is the first female member on the board of the Bund Deutscher Oenologen, a professional network of oenologists in Germany. She is on staff here at Oppenheim and is also responsible for educating Lufthansa cabin crews about German wines. In 1999/2000, she was the German Wine Queen. We head inside an airy seminar room for an update on the state of German plonk.

This is what I learn: Rheinhessen has been home to successful viticulture for more than 2,000 years. It lies at the northern geographical limit for grape growing, and because of the location, climate and the mighty Rhein, the vines vary greatly from year to year during their long, slow growing season. These conditions are perfect for sweet Riesling grapes.

The 2003 harvest was a bumper crop. More than 90% of the grapes grown in Germany are white, while 52% of those are Riesling. Spatburgunder (a pinot noir) is the most common red varietal. There are 104,000 hectares of vineyards in Germany. There used to be 13 wine-growing regions, but reunification added a couple more. This is a country of more than 12,000 commercial wine producers, which means you are either a winemaker or you probably know one.

I also learn that there is something called the German wine vision, which includes producing more pinot noir, some drier whites and to see more of the kooky, multi-tiered wine designations spelled out on wine labels to make it all clearer for buyers.

OK, enough of the dry stuff. Let's start drinking.

Some of the primary flavours in the wine I'll be sipping over the next few days are apple (from the grapes), grass (from the processing), banana (from fermentation) and clove (from barrels). With worksheets and wine, we make our way through our first four glasses of Riesling, each from a different German wine region. There are wine journalists on this tour and the pros are all swirling and slurping, swishing and spitting. But it's a hot spring day and I'm a newbie, so I'm flat-out drinking. And it's delicious. I sniff and detect notes of pineapple, soil and honey. The follow-up tastes are caramel and berry. On another, the nose says stewed fruit and orange peel, but the mouth says Chiquita banana. We learn that the terroir (I'm already using wine-speak, good), including the type of soil, slope and minerals such as sandstone and blue slate, greatly influence the taste of the wines.

Nicole Then, the reigning German Wine Queen, arrives in time for lunch wearing a snappy pink linen suit and bejewelled tiara. She is just back from a promotional tour of Asia and Russia. No straight beauty contest, the Wine Queen is chosen on wine knowledge first, then on her personality and looks. A goodwill ambassador and teacher, she represents the German wine industry around the globe. Ms.Then is gorgeous and well informed as she guides us from the seminar room, across the road and up steep inclines for a walking wine tasting through the Roter Hang vineyard site in Nierstein.

We saunter along "Riesling Hoenway," which garners views of the expansive vineyard, the Rhine, red sandstone soil, terra cotta rooftops, wild poppies and church steeples. She then leads us over to some vines and removes a little plastic casing from a branch. She explains these are bug-fighting capsules full of female pheromones used to ward off male butterflies so they cannot reproduce, multiply and kill the vines. Now that's girl power!

We relax in a rustic pavilion atop the vineyard with more glasses of Riesling. By now I've got quite a nice buzz going and this gets me thinking: I'm only on Day One of the this trip and it is already clear that German wine production is no longer a man's world. About half the students at the German wine schools are female, as are many of the instructors. More women are heading up family vineyards --and the wines are better for it.

At Weingut Kuhling-Gillot, 26-year-old Carolin Gillot is taking over much of the winemaking responsibilities at her parents' estate in Rheinhessen. This evening, in the tree-lined garden of the Gillot family estate, there is an alfresco dinner-party-cum-gathering of winemakers who belong to "Message in a Bottle," a collective of 18 sexy young producers, most of whom are under 30 years old, who meet for open discussions about wine.

"I'm young and I risk more," says our hostess, Ms. Gillot, about her winemaking philosophy. "I act like a woman. I taste the grapes to see if they're ripe. I listen to my stomach." Judging from the dozen or so glasses of sparkling wine (called secco), Riesling and Spatburgunder I sampled this evening, it appears the risk is paying off.

The next day brings a drive along a winding highway that cuts a swath through lolling vineyards, industrial parks, postcard-perfect towns and wineries. We arrive at University Geisenheim in Rheingau, which is also a wine research station. Monika Christmann, a professor of winemaking and oenology, takes us on a tour of the school, home to about 1,200 students attending courses in microbiology, viticulture, landscaping and beverage technology (all things related to wine production). Attendance in the wine program has increased threefold over the past decade. "It was a man's world when I started here 10 years ago," Ms. Christmann says. "But things have changed. Some people call it a revolution. But whatever, I'm still the only woman head at the school."

The focus at the research end of things is dealing with the technology of winemaking. Until the 1940s, Ms. Christmann says German wines were the top whites in the world, as sought after and expensive as fine French reds. But the Second World War had a devastating impact: Factories and wineries were bombed and workers went off to war, so production all but came to a halt. Quality plummeted further in the 1960s from too-high yields and a rush to mechanization. Instead of harvesting by hand and manually crushing the grapes, the grapes were machine-mashed, seeds and all. This process was easier, but made bitter wine.

The government hired the university to look at every step of the winemaking process. By returning to some traditional methods with the careful introduction of some modern techniques, winemakers have made great strides in improving quality. We blind-tasted two white wines: one made by mechanized means, the other done more traditionally via pressed bunches. The old-school way tastes better -- fresher and cleaner. "In the end, the decision will be made by the consumer," Ms. Christmann says.

Next, we head to the Pfalz region. At the Sektgut Menger-Krug family estate, the feisty Gina Menger-Krug, who, along with her husband, pioneered the production of fine sparkling wines (called Sekt) in Germany in the early 1980s, meets us at the gate. Then we drink some Sekt, around 15 glasses or so. We meander through the horse stables, the vineyards, the vast herbal and flower gardens and relax by the pool, always carrying full "Champagne" glasses in hand. The family dog tags along with a 20-year-old vine branch clenched between his teeth, in lieu of a bone.

Gina has two daughters in university, one of whom is studying at the Geisenheim in Rheingau. They will eventually take over the family business. "What's the difference between women and men in wine?" Ms. Menger-Krug asks us. Susie Barrie, a U.K. wine writer, answers: "With female producers, they're looking to make wines with passion that will immediately speak to people, while men make wines they think will impress. Men want to be remembered in 100 years, while women want to improve the lives of those that surround them."

Our final drive takes us to the small town of Freinsheim, with its Tudor-style houses tarted up with window boxes blooming multi-coloured pansies. Every street is made of cobblestone and the church bells start ringing at 6:15 p.m. and don't stop till 6:30 p.m. We're at Luther, a hotel and restaurant, for a farewell dinner with the women of Vinissima, an association of women in the wine business, founded in Baden in 1991 by seven winemakers. Today there are more than 235 members, about a dozen of whom are here on this lovely terrace with its overgrown ivy and blossoming fig trees.

Over a modern German dinner, which includes petite potato galette topped with seared scallops and roasted artichokes in a subtle lobster sauce, we taste another 15 wines, all produced by the women of Vinissima sitting among us. It turns out to be a powerful night of five-star food, luscious wines and sisterhood. But after three days, upwards of 160 wine tastings and too little sleep, I don't remember that much of it. I think I may have passed out in my strudel.

Taste Test
German wine classifications are tricky, which is why they are being overhauled. Here's a primer to fill you in on some Riesling label basics:

- German Rieslings are classified on the basis of the ripeness of the grapes at harvest. Over 90% of German Rieslings are sold as Qualitatswein, having passed government-controlled analytical and tasting tests.
- Qualitatswein Bestimmter Anbaugebiete (QbA), includes wines from one of the 13 approved German quality wine-growing regions that ripen sufficiently to assure the wine carries the taste and style of its region.
- Qualitatswein Mit Pradikat (QmP) meets all requirements of QbA, but are of higher quality, made from riper or overripe grapes.
- Kabinett are naturally light wines made from fully ripened grapes.
- Spatlese means "late harvest" and is made from very ripe grapes, lending fuller body.
- Auslese are wines made from selected bunches of overripe grapes.
- Beerenauslese (BA) are sweet dessert wines made from hand-picked overripe berries, often affected by botrytis cinerea, a mould that concentrates the grape musk.
- Eiswein is icewine, a concentrated wine made from fully ripe grapes left on the vine until a hard frost and picked while frozen.
- Trockenbeerenauslese (TBA) are the rarest German wines, very labour intensive because the handpicked grapes are dried to the point of raisins.

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