Grey, skeletal branches stretch upward through curtains of caterpillar webbing. Progress through this particular ecological ruin requires the swing of a hiking pole just to part them.
This stretch of the Moselsteig, known as the Buchsbaumweg or Boxwood Path, runs along a ridge high above Germany’s most famous winemaking region. Wild Mediterranean boxwood grows here at the northern edge of its range, surviving in the same climate that ripens Riesling on the...