We present an analysis of the isospin-one V-A correlator based on our successful simultaneous description of the OPAL V and A non-strange tau spectral data. We discuss the values obtained for the Chiral Perturbation Theory low-energy constants L_10 a
nd C_87 as well as the dimension-six and eight condensates and compare them with those in the literature.
Evidence is presented for the necessity of including duality violations in a consistent description of spectral function moments employed in the precision determination of $alpha_s$ from $tau$ decay. A physically motivated ansatz for duality violatio
ns in the spectral functions enables us to perform fits to spectral moments employing both pinched and unpinched weights. We describe our analysis strategy and provide some preliminary findings. Final numerical results await completion of an ongoing re-determination of the ALEPH covariance matrices incorporating correlations due to the unfolding procedure which are absent from the currently post
