Luxembourg wine lake on German motorway

(mk/ADW) An accident involving a truck and thousands of litres of Luxembourg wine on a German motorway on Monday, is no doubt going to cause lovers of the Grand Duchy’s wine to wince.

According to reports, a truck was carrying a 20 tonne load of Luxembourg wine in bottles while travelling on the A3 motorway in Geiselwind, between Würzburg and Nuremberg. The driver managed to somehow flip the truck over, causing the precious cargo to fall out and smash, resulting in a sea of wine spilling out and washing motorway for several kilometres.

The 53-year-old driver, who was actually from the Rhineland-Palatinate region of Germany, was not injured in the accident. However, according to German online news service spiegel.de, after a breathalyser test was carried out, proved to be drunk and well over the legal limit.

It was not mentioned which vineyard the wine came from, but damages in excess of 50,000 euros was estimated.

While rescuing the truck itself was a relatively easy task, cleaning up wine and broken bottles proved a bit more of a headache as the "lake" spread over several kilometres and is not exactly salvageable.