- Life in the wine cellar -

Creating the finest wine is an art that requires savoir-faire and time-honoured traditions. Here too, being very attentive to the plants' needs and using a gentle touch are key.

To make the best wine in Alsace, we must, first and foremost, produce the best grapes. All the care that was given to the vines throughout the year must continue in the same spirit in the wine cellar.
The grapes are harvested by hand at just the right time, based on the ripeness of each parcel, and transported very carefully to the pressing room. Our grapes are pressed as gently as possible, allowing the juice to drain slowly into the wine tank. At this stage, we take our time - as much time as necessary - to extract the best juice.

After settling overnight and lightening naturally in colour, the juice is separated from the deposits. The grape juice is then poured into wooden stock vats or stainless steel tanks to ferment. No cultured yeast or other foreign substances are added to the grapes. We allow the natural yeasts to transform the grape sugars slowly, at their own rhythm. Later during the winter, other fermentation elements come into play and stabilise the wine. It's the unhurried pace and respect for natural processes that allow the unique character of each terroir and each year's harvest to flourish, thereby enabling the wine to develop in all its intricacy.

We choose the best moment to bottle the wine, when we feel it is ready. After being slightly filtered in the spring, which makes the wine clearer and brighter, white wines are bottled in the cellar before the next harvest in August or September. The bottles are then left to stand until we feel they are ready to grace your table.

The vinification process of our red wine, made from “pinot noir” grapes, is more involved: indeed, its juice is white, the colour being derived from the grape skin. To make a red wine, the grape skin has to be macerated in the juice throughout the fermentation process. Unfortunately, the solid elements of the grapes tend to float.
Thus, they repeatedly have to be submerged in the juice to maximise contact. Morning and night, the mixture has to be stirred manually, using a long-handled tool to push the solid elements down into the juice. After fermentation, the pinot noir is pressed, and then stored in oak barrels in the cellar for 6 to 10 months before being bottled. Depending on the natural colour of the wine, we decide whether or not to lightly filter it.

 

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