German Village Elects Male 'Wine Queen'

It's tough to find a good wine queen these days. In fact, it's gotten so hard that one village in southern Germany has just elected its first male wine queen.

According to NBC News, wine-producing villages in the south of Germany have long relied on "wine queens," to act as brand ambassadors for the wines produced in their villages. Lately, though, it's been getting harder to find women who want to wear dirndls and crowns and carry the title of "wine queen," especially in the tiny village of Kesten.

Kesten has 25 local wineries, but just around 350 inhabitants, and its latest wine queen had been stuck serving for three years in a row because they couldn't find anybody willing to succeed her. Then, mostly as a joke, 24-year-old law student Sven Finke said he'd be the wine queen, and the town took him seriously.

"After the present wine queen already added a third year to her duties because they could not find a successor, I jokingly said that I would take the wine queen job," he said.

Wine queens traditionally wear dirndls and tiaras, but Kesten has decided to call Finke its "Bacchus Castanidi," and he'll wear a gold laurel wreath and a toga while carrying out his wine queen duties.