Our favourite go-to place for great value-for-money wines, is Eguisheim. A pittoresque small village very typical to the Alsace. You get winer makers in every other building, and usually people walking in the streets with boxes of wine they’d just tasted and purchased.

We found a very lively city, even more than we’d expected, due to the x-mas market. At Gruss we found their shop laden with folks tasting their wines and we restocked our Casse Noisette, and Argilles Blanche, our all time faves there.

At the x-mas market, we found the stall of Andrée Kouzmine, Créatice de Chapeaux, of the shop Andres K Chapeaux, with a passion for creating exquisite hats. Once I mentioed I was an amateur photographer (since three weeks, cough), she smiled and let me make my pictures, appreciating they were “ah blanc et noir”. Thanks for allowing me to make some pictures of your wonderful world!

Wolfberger has a Pinot Gris and a Pinot Noir that have been on oak, both called “La Louve”. We’ve returned here to purchase it, and would invariably have it at dinner with their neighbours who used to have a very culinary menu, yet have steadily been making it more mainstream. The foie gras still is very nice with warm sweet brioche bread.

The X-mas market also explained why we struggled to find a place to lodge. Very smart layout, car’s in the garage underneath, fast charger for the EV at the entrance, little apartments disguised in local Alsace shapes and colours. Simple. clean, private. Our view: