Wine Country

As you might have guessed from my blip handle, I'm from the Alsace region of France, home to wines such as the Riesling, Gewurtztraminer, Pinot Noir, Sylvaner, and Muscat (the real deal, not the cheap imitations from across the border…) :)

In spite of the rather mixed weather here, I decided to take a drive up on our Route des Vins, a narrow country road that winds across all the wine producing villages, over a distance of about 120km south to north. The villages are each perched on a hill side (this view is from the Pfaffenheim village); some winemakers are very small producers who bring their wines together in co-ops; others are rather large domains, who also export abroad. All of them are family owned business that have been in the family for as many as 500 years.

I wanted to take some establishing shots of the landscape as part of my new project of documenting who some of our winemakers are. So I'll spend the next few weeks here bouncing around from place to place, meeting winemakers, and getting their stories along with their portraits. My youngest daughter will meet up with me for a week and accompany me on that journey ("will I get to taste the wines?" was her main concern!). I'm jazzed about the project and hope to do my people justice :) And it'll give me an excuse to return in September - for the vendanges and a different look at the same business.