Day 9

Pique-nique in Barr.

Ok, so this was the best experience to date. The village of Barr has a yearly picnic at the local winery. We were told we were invited with Philippe’s family. Ok, sounds like fun, huh.

This was incredible. Many of the town’s residents descend on the winery for a full afternoon of eating, socializing, singing and sampling the wine from the vineyard. Did I forget to tell you the name of the vineyard…sorry…Domain Hering! Surely these folks are at least distant relatives of mine! They were very excited to hear that I am also a Herring! We had a great time. Philippe and his wife brought many tasty things to eat, plus we had a healthy sampling of the vineyard’s Rhubarb wine, a white wine, a red wine, and finally their Champagne. Then there was a wine tasting, with a contest to see who could guess the year and region of the wine. Philippe guessed 1982 from the Alcase (where we are) region. He was off by one year, it was a 1981! He has an unbelievable knowledge of wine.

It is traditional that the villagers wear hats to the pique-nique, so Philippe's wife Clementine made these up for us!

Me playing the hurdy-gurdy!

The head wine-maker, and possibly my long, long, long lost cousin, Jean-Daniel.

Another one of the highlights of the day was the impromtu jam session I had with Philppe’s son. The crowd seemed to like it too!

At the end of the day we ascended the mountain into the vineyard and stopped in on the monument to Eduard Hering…pretty cool. It was a grueling walk up the mountain, but totally worth it for the breathtaking views!

Afteward, we returned to the house, had a light dinner, more wine (a very sweet late-harvest wine from this region), played more foosball and finally turned in for the night. What an unbelievable day it was! The French certainly know how to live, eat and drink!

Tomorrow our concert in Strasbourg….