Alsatian Wine Route - Wine tasting
 

We will end our WWI-and-Wine trip to France this August with two days along the Alsatian Wine Route before departing from Basel-Mulhouse (BSL). I've been reading old postings here and a bit from Food&Wine to get ideas for the best wine experiences.

Currently targeted stops based on the wine producers: Andlau, Hunawihr, Ribeauville, Turkheim, and Equisheim. We'll overlap with the Winegrower's Festival in Eguisheim... not sure if that is good or bad.

Also planning to see Chateau de Haut- Koenigsbourg along the way and maybe a little hike, such as the one out of Ribeauville up to the ruins of the three chateaux-forts.

Current plan is to spend the first night in Obernai at Hotel Le Colombier, the next night at Hotel de la Tour in Ribeauville and a final night at Hotel Des Deux Clef in Turckheim. Any advice/critiques? Restaurant suggestions for high quality traditional Alsatian food?

We love the Alsatian Wine Route!

Here is a link to our 2009 Turckheim Wine festival visit. It will give you an idea of what a wine festival entails (Eguisheim would be very similar I'd imagine).

http://s918.photobucket.com/albums/a...view=slideshow


Daytime is for families, night time is for young(very young, voir "immature") people. Daytime, people are toasting with their taste-vin/night time it was double fisted bottle guzzling. We just retreated to the inner courtyard of l'Homme Sauvage for a very nice dinner and had an enjoyable evening there and left the youth to their partying in the streets.

Turckheim: We stayed at the Hotel des Deux Clefs and really enjoyed it (one of my all-time best breakfasts in Europe). It's a little <vieillotte> but we liked it and would gladly return. Our favorite restaurant for local flavor was restaurant/auberge de Turenne (last pictures shown). You won't have any trouble finding a cave for a wine-tasting in this village!

Lastly, if you get a chance visit the local war museum. This town was liberated by the Americans after a very tough battle, and though very small it is packed with memorabilia. They fly both the American and French flags in the lovely flower garden at its entrance.

Happy Travels!

Klondike great photos. Loved the buildings, flowers and pagentry.

We will be Alsace at the end of September based in Riquewihr. Turckheim is now on the list.

Hi Cart,

May I suggest http://schwendi.pagesperso-orange.fr/ in Kientzheim.

The owners have their own vineyard.

Kientzheim is a small, walled village that dates way, way, way back.

One can walk to Kaysersberg and through the vineyards to Riquewihr.

I also suggest dinner at http://www.le-maximilien.com/

Enjoy your visit.
((I))

bookmarking

Eguisheim lets you taste Bruno Sorg's wine, if the festival is on getting to the good stuff may be a bit harder but still worth the trouble.

thet Turckheim coop is a good place to start middle of the road wines, loads of space and staff to advise and give a you a good overview.

If you want a fine view pop up to the Ballon d'alscace and look south at the Alps.

Wow Klondike! Thanks for sharing the pictures and down-low on the wine festival. The Eguisheim festival has two prices, day and evening, and five bands playing in the evening... now it all makes sense!

Thanks Ira for the recommendations! Current plan is to pick up the Michelin 315 (Bas-Rhin, Haut-Rhin, Ter.-de-Belfort) in Paris during the first portion of the trip -- is this a reasonable plan?

How long does it take to drive up the Ballon d'Alsace to get a good view? It's something I'd like to do... last year we went skiing in the French Alps and I wouldn't mind a little reminiscing.

Not sure why you want to pick up and move three nights in a row - the wine route isn't that long.

You've left out Trimbach, one of the best.

Hi St. Cirq: I've been of two minds about the three different nights of hotel. We will be arriving in the area late on 8/25 after spending a couple of days around Verdun. The final night I wanted to be on the South end of the route, since we have an 11:30 am flight out of BSL on 8/28. Would you recommend choosing a central location for three nights or doing the first night in Obernai and the next two in Turckheim?

In addition to Trimbach in Ribeauville, do you have any favorite tasting rooms?

My favorite town in Alsace is Obernai. I'd stay there all three nights, but I do understand if you want to move closer to your departure town toward the end of your stay.

I haven't done "tasting rooms," per se. I used to write a wine column monthly for a Canadian wine magazine and so would have appointments with vineyard owners and be given private tours and tastings. A couple that I remember fondly were Antoine-Grau Dominique and Bohn et Fils, but I have no idea if they do tastings or are open to the public. I also used to just drive around the area and walk up to wine châteaux and see if they'd talk to me and let me taste - this was 20 years ago, and in my more recent travels to Alsace I haven't tried that, so have no idea whether it would work or not (aside: you'd almost certainly have to speak pretty flawless French to get this to work) - it used to. Of course, in every town and village there are ample opportunities to do a dégustation, so I don't think you'll be wanting for wine experiences.

Here's a link to a list of the Grand Cru vineyards in Alsace. Maybe you can use it to research which ones are open for dégustations:

http://www.thewinedoctor.com/regiona...andscrus.shtml

Thanks for sharing your expertise St. Cirq! It looks like some producers have an online reservation form for tastings. Unfortunately my French is far from flawless, so I'll stick to this method... plus as you say there are ample opportunities along the route for a dégustation. Am in the process of sorting out the hotel issue.

check google for the times, from memory its about 15 mins from Rouffach in a car and about 2 hours by bike :-)

I have found in Alsace that at smaller producers, if they offer tastings, it's assumed it's preliminary to a sale. So expect a frosty reception if you try out several wines and don't buy at least a few bottles at the end of it.
At more popular producers, esp if you have to pay for a tour and tastings, there is no expectation of a sale and you feel no pressure to buy, unless you want to.

Ira, We have reservations at the L'Abbaye d'Alspach in Kientzheim in mid-September. Do you know it? Is it a good choice? Thanks.

Thanks for the heads up about purchase expectations! Trimbach, Z-H, Albert Boxler and a few other of the larger labels are available in our local stores so I'm hoping to find some of the small but great producers for my purchases.

I've scattered a few articles about Alsace, here is one http://www.mybikeguide.co.uk/Alsace_Food.php this may be a bit simple for your requirements but it gives you a base line to work from.