A Post from Alsace France

I am in Strasbourg, France currently. I spent a couple of days longer in Spain than I was hoping to, due to very heavy flight bookings. I have been in France for 4 days and am really enjoying it, despite not knowing much French. The people are very friendly and try to help any way they can. I am quite glad that I do not need to farm some of the land that they grow grapes on. The vineyards are very steep with very high planting densities. I have seen very few vineyards that could be worked mechanically here, but the small land holdings probably make this impractical anyway. The rules that they also need to comply with would cause me frustration, but they do also provide some stability to their industry that we do not enjoy back home. The photo shows a traditional French village with an ancient fort overlooking it, surrounded by vineyards.

Back in the Barossa Valley it has been drizzly and we have had several frosts. We recorded 11mm of rain for the week over 5 days. I believe we are also seeing the first signs of bud swell.