The 2012 Winemaker of the Year is Alsatian!

By the riesling team, 18 January 2012

Meilleur vigneron France 2012 Domaine Albert Mann Vins Alsace

DR

Alsace wines got off to a flying start in 2012

Alsace wines got off to a flying start in 2012, with the 2012 Wine­ma­kers of the Year award going to the well-known Domaine Albert Mann, based in Wet­tol­sheim (near Colmar).

The estate has been invol­ved in orga­nic agri­cul­ture since 1997and pro­duces some 120,000 bot­tles per year, 60% of which are expor­ted to 35 coun­tries around the world, inclu­ding the Uni­ted States, Aus­tra­lia, Swe­den and Bra­zil.
The pres­ti­gious award is announ­ced every year by hea­vy­weight French wine maga­zine Revue du Vin de France, and was given this year in recog­ni­tion of the work and devo­tion of the two Bar­thelmé bro­thers, Mau­rice and Jacky, and their wives, Marie-Claire (Mann, the daugh­ter of Albert Mann) and Marie-Thérèse, who took over the run­ning of the estate in 1989.
It was no easy task for the two couples to bring the estate’s wines up to such a high stan­dard and it nee­ded all their indi­vi­dual skills and the bene­vo­lant super­vi­sion, up to 1994, of papa Albert, whose wife, Claire, still works in the winery. Inva­luable help is pro­vi­ded by the rest of the team, inclu­ding Clé­ment, who has been there over 20 years, Paul, Eric, Florent and Anne-Caroline.
Mau­rice looks after the 21 hec­tares of vines, 5 of which come under the Alsace Grand Cru appel­la­tion. The vineyards are split into a hun­dred or so plots, which are ten­ded like indi­vi­dual gar­dens, with patience and a total res­pect for the bene­fits that nature brings them.
The cel­lar is the res­pon­si­bi­lity of Jacky and he works with Mau­rice in their typi­cally Alsa­tian way to bring out the best of their excep­tio­nal ter­roirs: Schloss­berg, Furs­ten­tum, Hengst, Stein­gru­bler, Pfer­sig­berg, Alten­bourg and Rosenberg.

Pinot Noir, Jacky’s favou­rite varietal,has been vini­fied since 1993 using tra­di­tio­nal Bur­gundy methods and is cer­tainly one of the estate’s most suc­cess­ful wines, with Clos de la Faille, le Grand H, le Grand P and Saintes Claires, all of which have built up an enviable repu­ta­tion.
Albert Mann wines can be found in many of the finest res­tau­rants in the world, inclu­ding Marc Haeberlin’s Auberge de l’Ill in Alsace, Michel Bras in the Aubrac, l’Arpège in Paris, the Diverso in Madrid and Jean-Georges in New-York…The estate is not, howe­ver, just about high-priced wines, they also, for example, have a Pinot Blanc Auxer­rois at under 10 euros.

There’s nothing spec­ta­cu­lar behind the estate’s suc­cess, it’s basi­cally down to meti­cu­lous atten­tion to qua­lity, small yields, a rigou­rous, but flexible approach to the vines, manual har­ves­ting of per­fectly ripe grapes and the sti­mu­la­tion of micro­bial life using the estate’s own com­post. And, of course, huge enthu­siasm, which doubt­less owes some­thing to Marie-Thérèse Barthelmé’s Anda­lu­sian background.

The ele­gance of the estate’s wines can also be seen in the design of the bot­tle labels, which are the work of local artist Fran­çois Bruetschy.

The Bar­thel­més are also wine­ma­kers with a highly deve­lo­ped sense of hos­pi­ta­lity, and they give a warm wel­come not just to the finest som­me­liers in the world such as Serge Dubs, Oli­vier Pous­sier, Enrico Ber­nardo and Andreas Lars­son, but also to eve­ryone who drops by to taste their wine . The family are inve­te­rate tra­vel­lers and are mem­bers of the “Gobe­lo­teurs” Asso­cia­tion, within which some of the best wine­ma­kers in France share their expe­rience and their enthu­siasm for winemaking.

While tra­di­tion and moder­nity can often be a somew­hat hack­neyed phrase, it’s some­thing which can be genui­nely applied to the Domaine Albert Mann, which still uses horses to plough its par­cels on the Schloss­berg, but which also intro­du­ced screw tops in 2004.

The estate’s suc­cess is sha­red by all Alsace wine makers.

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