The Most Beautiful Wine Region in the World?

I have to admit that I'm not qualified to answer that question, but our trip to Alsace certainly had me wondering if there's a wine region in the world more beautiful than that little corner of France. It's certainly prettier than either Napa or Sonoma. It's prettier than Mendoza in Argentina and all the wine regions of Chile. We spent about five days in Alsace. We were based in Eguisheim. And it was absolutely fantastic. Except for one little detail . . .

The LL in Colmar

We flew on EasyJet from Barcelona to Mulhouse, and rented a car to get to the little village of Eguisheim. First, a little about the village. It is a tiny little hamlet. I think the population is under 2000. But they have close to forty wine producers! That is my idea of a great little town. The village is organized in circles. Basically, there is the center of town, and then around the center there are several concentric circles, with the last circle being where the old Roman walls were located. And then there was additional development outside those walls. We were very close to the middle, in a little apartment attached to a winery. An ideal location.

A Long View of an Alsace Village, with Castle Ruins Behind

But one does not and should not come to Alsace and stay in just one place. On our first full day in the area, we traveled to a nearby town that had a huge castle. It was impressive. And these sorts of things are one of the aspects of Alsace that makes it an amazing wine region. You have acres and acres of fantastic vines, many of which have the Grand Cru designation. And above the villages you often have ruins or restorations of very old castles. It makes for a fairytale setting.

And a fairytale it was until I started coughing. And I mean really, really coughing. It got bad enough that I could not sleep, was very weak, and I was starting to think a hospital visit might be in my future. But I stopped getting worse, and that was enough to keep me away from the hospital. With some good suppressants at night along with expectorant during the day, it was bearable. Barely. That cough went on for about five weeks. Likely a walking pneumonia. But we did not let that stop us completely, just slowed us down a bit.

Chateau de Haut-Koenigsbourg

We visited castles. We visited wineries. We took in the views of the vines (see below). We happened to be there for their week of wine tasting, a special time when all the winemakers of Eguisheim were offering tastings in the center of town. And there was a huge celebration of their most prized Grand Crus, including tastings, as well. A great time to be in Alsace.

While I was not able to make the trip, needing to rest to fight the illness, the others visited Colmar. This is the second biggest city in the region. But it is also postcard-perfect, as you can see in the photos below.

The one negative was that the LL fell on a cobblestone street and got a small cut on her forehead. But a small cut on the forehead still means lots of blood. Scary when it happened, but we proved that a toddler's forehead truly is built for impact. She shook it off quickly and was ready to go to Paris, our final stop before heading back to the US. I'll post on that portion of the trip soon, my last "catch-up" post before moving on to real-time plans for future travel and evaluation of our latest trip.