The wine grower

On the center of the picture, at the exit of the village, the blue house of ROUTEDUVIN

Plane from the UK: Ryanair from Stansted to Strasbourg (50 km) or to Baden (75km north) or Easyjet to Basel ( 75km south).

From Strasbourg, 30 min. A35, EXIT 18, than take the first left 3 times.

On the "Route du Vin", from Ribeauville, first house on your right hand side.

The Winegrower has also a passion for words . How to express it better than with a book, a book over  wine , vine and words: the "Petit lexique de la vigne au vin en alsacien : Vun de Rawe züem Wi(n)" ( little lexicon from vine to wine in alsacian dialect and french "

  Written by Paul-André Befort et Léon Daul, with the collaboration of the Winegrower.  to see or download ( in PDF) pleas click right on the link

The weather is just fantastic, perfect sun, not too windy, So the winegrower decided to make an interruption, leaving the 2 last hectares taking advantage of it. The volume of liquid will go down and so the concentraton of all the rest will raise.

The 2008 is going to be a a great vintage 

Nota:  1 hectare= 100 ares / 1 are =100m²

Here we are, the harvest has started.  Since Monday morning the Winegrower and all the team are picking the grapes. Helped by a fantastic weather, the first results are really good.

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What a pleasure in Alsace when you can welcome a stork on your roof, the emblem of your region.
When we where kids we used to sing: (in local dialect)   
           Storich, Storich làngabein,
           Breng m'r boll à Bubala heim
           Eins wo hiilt
           Eins wo làcht,
           Eins wo oi en d'Wendel màcht.

(Photo Pierre)                             Stork, stork on your long feet
                                                          Bring us soon a little baby,
                                                           One (baby) who cries,
                                                           One (baby) who smiles,
                                                           One (baby) who will do in his nappy!

The " VERAISON "

With the first week of August comes the colour to the grapes: This is what we call here "véraison ".

But this is only  possible if the vine has enough humidity to fix the fructose wich has been elaborated by the assimilation of the chlorophyll.

But for the last ten days the vineyard was realy thirsty, and the process nearly blocked .
So when august 12th brought us a shower of rain, it was more than welcome: 45 l of water by square meter ! We now have great hopes in a very balanced vintage.

What is the wine grower doing when everybody is on sommer holidays? Guess what !
As strange as it seems, he's HARVESTING!
Indeed,  its time for us to start the "GREEN HARVEST" (vendange en vert). This means that we reduce the number of the grapes so they receive more energy. We do this manualy,  looking at the strengh of each plant and the type of  wine we want to produce out of this wineyard.
So you might be sorry for the thousands of grapes who will never give their juce, in a sacrifice to get the optimum quality of a late vintage, but you will taste the difference!

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If you want to know more about the Winegrower's wines or be good when you serve them to your friends, our oenologist did his comments:

Oenologist