This is not the tourist season in Alsace, which is very agreeable to me. These hardy men and women burn bundles of cut cane-wood to stay warm. This picture shows the chunky clay soils of a Grand Cru Alsacian vineyard.
Most vineyards use traditional trellising.
One pruner goes through the rows, back bent the entire day, cutting the unwanted wood off the dormant vines, and his apprentice follows extricating the pruned wood from the wires of the makeshift vertical shoot-positioned trellis wires. The wines were a split of 1995 Turkheim Pinot Noir that was simple and thin. The white wine was a 1992 Cuvee Frederic-Emile Reisling from Trimbach. Now THIS was a fine wine. Apple and spice and acid, acid, acid.