Domaine Weinbach

Domaine Weinbach is a historic winery in Alsace. The building was constructed as a monastery in 1612 by the Capuchin monks, and sold as a public asset during the French Revolution. It's located at the foot of the Schlossberg hill and owes its name, Weinbach ('wine brook'), to the small river which passes through the estate.

In 1898 the winery was acquired by the Faller brothers, who then passed it on to Théo, their son and nephew. Théo become an eminent figure in the Alsace wine industry and fought hard to obtain the AOC, convinced of the Alsace region's high quality; devoted to his estate and the native varietals, he enlarged and improved the property.

Théo Faller died in 1979, leaving the project in the hands of his wife Colette and his daughters Catherine and Laurence, who showed the same passion and commitment to fine Alsatian wines, taking Weinbach to the top echelon of quality. Back in 1998 they started to bring in biodynamic agriculture and obtained biodynamic certification in 2010, the last year with Laurence as winemaker. In 2015, Catherine and her son Théo Leiber-Faller took charge of the Domaine, preserving its position to this day as one of Alsace's most renowned wineries.

On its 26 ha, Domaine Weinbach shows great respect for its viticultural procedures, aiming for the minimum intervention possible in the natural development of the grapes, which is achieved by showing constant attention to the vineyards and to organic and biodynamic practices. The wines ferment slowly in large old oak vats by means of native yeasts; sometimes, as is the case with sweet wines, for up to a year and then they are bottled without filtration or clarification, endeavouring to express all the potential from the finest quality grapes.

At the present time, Domaine Weinbach owns 62 acres of vineyards, among which feature the prestigious Schlossberg, the first terroir in Alsace to receive Grand Cru classification. The style of the wines is concentrated and fruit-forward, with the accent on sweetness in the majority of the top-range wines. It's precisely the combination of concentration, fruit and residual sugar that places Weinbach among Alsace's most important biodynamic producers, along with historic names like Marcel Deiss and Zind-Humbrecht, with Weinbach perhaps being the most prevailing and recognisable of the three.