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The Queen of Wine

For over a century, villages in southern Germany have selected local women to serve as “wine queen” — ambassadors for the area’s primary produce, grapes. But the 350 residents of Kesten had trouble finding a new queen. “After the present wine queen already added a third year to her duties because they could not find a successor,” said Sven Finke, 24, “I jokingly said that I would take the wine queen job.” The village’s inhabitants took his offer seriously. He is now “the first male representative in this part of the Moselle region” and represents the village, which is home to 25 wineries. His title: “Bacchus Castanidi” — after the Roman god of winemaking, harvest, ritual madness and ecstasy. (MS/NBC) ...Surely, with some extra training, he’ll be able to do the job nearly as well as a woman would have done.