My husband and I have birthdays five days apart in August, and we usually celebrate them as a birthday week. This year we decided on Zell an der Mosel , a town on the Mosel River in an area of western Germany renowned for its Rieslings. We thought a combination of wine tastings, vineyard walks, and visits to towns along the banks of the Mosel would be fun. We were right. My husband chose Zell as our base for nostalgic reasons. The first wine he bought as soon as he could pass for 21 was Zeller Schwarze Katz , perhaps a step up (or down) from Liebfraumilch and Mateus , but definitely superior to the Colt 45 tall boys he sneaked behind the bleachers in high school. The Mosel originates in France, where it is called the Moselle , and runs north to Koblenz in Germany, where it joins the Rhine. The river is tortuous, languorous, and absolutely lovely. Just observing it was deeply, deeply relaxing. Another reason my husband chose...