...but often lavender makes for a more lucrative crop although it takes some tending. While Napoleon was in the neighborhood, the lavender crop mushroomed to serve the French appetite for perfume. Much of this area has an abandoned feel to it, and typically the lavender terraces seem a bit scruffy. (Since the Venetians brought vines in the 12th century, wine was also an important export but, as in France, the phylloxera critters wiped out the industry and many of the island's agricultural workers left. The slopes and sun -- along with strong winds that keep insects at bay -- make this excellent wine country and Hvar's wine industry has made a strong comeback. (Croatian and Hungarian wines -- dismissed for years as Eastern Block schlock-- are suddenly in vogue.) But sometimes the winds (named "Bura" for the North and "Yugo" for the south) are so strong that those who labor in the vineyards must be tied together with ropes.
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