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Domaine Pfister, Bas Rhin

Domaine Pfister began life in 1780 during our Revolutionary War. That seems a long time ago, until you learn that Pfister’s village of Dahlenheim was favorably noted for wine production in the distant year of 884. A written record has survived, detailing how the village supplied wine to the Abbey of Saint Michel de Honan during that era. Dahlenheim was an important center of wine production throughout the Middle Ages as well. It’s located due west of Strasbourg in the northern reaches of the Bas Rhin, (legally, a separate department from the Haut Rhin, and meaning, simply, lower down the Rhine River—but keep in mind that the Rhine flows north to the Baltic).

This is Riesling country. Up here the Vosges Mountains are not nearly so toweringly majestic, nor, correspondingly, so protective. The vineyards are not as shielded from cold weather as further south in the Haut Rhin, and this cooler climate, along with the abundance of limestone and thinner, less sandy soils, favors Riesling and makes for particularly elegant, mineral renditions of the wine. Mélanie Pfister makes two Rieslings, both entirely dry. One is tantalizingly full, rich, and earthy, while the other, the Grand Cru, makes you sit up with its petrol, its white flowers, and its bounding, razor sharp minerality.

If you like wines marked above all by purity of fruit, elegance, and character (to say nothing of reasonable pricing), you have come to the right place. Domaine Pfister farms forty parcels totaling ten hectares (twenty-five acres) of vines, twenty-five percent of which is in Riesling. Mélanie "officially" took over from her father with the 2006 vintage, but dad is far from retiring. He very proudly has got his daughter’s back, and works the vines as hard as he ever did. He just no longer sweats the cellar work.

Leading up to that transition, Mélanie did internships at the following estates: Zind-Humbrecht (Alsace), Méo-Camuzet (Burgundy), Château Cheval Blanc (Saint Emilion), Château d’Yquem (Sauternes) and Craggy Range (New Zealand). Then, in 2005, she made the first Cuvée 8, a blended wine that she had long envisioned and so named because she is the eighth generation Pfister to make wine at the domaine. Following the transition, the next big step she took came after the harvest in 2010, when she broke ground on a new cellar. She knows how she wants to make and handle her wine, and beginning with the 2011 vintage she has been able to do just that.

Apart from one Pinot Noir, all of Mélanie’s wines are made and aged in tank. Indigenous yeast is preferred, but she reserves the right to use non-aromatic cultured yeasts in more problematic years when the risks of off-flavors are greater. The wines are normally fermented dry and bottled with a minimum addition of sulfur.

About her family’s style of wine, Mélanie wrote the following in 2012: The house style appeared itself as the style of wine my parents and grandparents liked to drink: aromatic, well-balanced, rather dry style of wines. As a matter of fact, my grandfather used to say, "Finally, I am probably the one who drinks the most of my wines, so I craft the wines I like!" — no concession, he liked dry wines.

The signature on the Pfister labels is that of Mélanie’s great-grandfather.

The Wines

NV Crémant d’Alsace: The appellation rules for this wine were promulgated in 1976, and Mélanie’s father started making crémant in the early 1980s. From the first, he started with a long aging period. Today, the Pfisters well understand this wine and consistently make an unusually elegant, perfumed, top end sparkling wine. This is a blend of roughly equal parts Chardonnay and Pinot Blanc/Auxerrois. The wine rests on its lees for a minimum of twenty-four months. Depending on what bottling you have—there are between three and four disgorgements of a given year’s crémant—what you’re drinking could have aged as long as thirty-six months on its lees. Because of the different disgorgements, this wine is declared non-vintage, but in fact it is a single-vintage wine made without any older reserve wine. Approximately 600 cases are produced each year.

Pinot Blanc: The vineyard surface is 2.4 hectares, or six acres, essentially split between Pinot Blanc and Pinot Auxerrois. Some is reserved for the sparkling wine, but most goes into this still bottling. Pinot Blanc gives perfume and length, while Auxerrois gives fat and spice. The vines were planted in 1973 and 1974 in predominately clay soils.

Cuvée 8: This is Mélanie’s creation; a blend of Riesling, Pinot Gris, Gewurztraminer, and Muscat, in that order—but every year the percentages vary according to what variety does best. In that sense, the wine is intended to reflect the best of a given year. It is also intended to proclaim Alsace! in spades. The varieties are picked separately and fermented individually before being blended. Save for the Muscat, all come from the Silberberg terroir.

Riesling Silberberg: A delectable wine, with full, earthy stone fruit and dry, crisp length. The Silberberg hillsides are a clay-limestone mix, and the former gives body while the latter gives finesse and length. The Pfisters farm six plots of Riesling here, totaling 1.29 hectares, or 3.18 acres of vines.

Riesling Grand Cru Engelberg: Engelberg means Angel’s Hill. This was the south-facing hillside vineyard that was written about in 884 and praised for its fine wine. The hillside’s topsoil is very thin and marly, sitting on a mound of hard limestone into whose cracks the vines root. The purity of this limestone was such that a quarry was established in the middle of the slope and produced lime into the 20th century. The vineyard was granted Grand Cru status in 1985, and the Pfisters farm 0.77 hectares of Riesling here, or just under two acres of vines.

Pinot Gris Tradition: Of all the wines listed on this page, this is the richest in terms of sweetness, but the impression is one of concentration and elegance—a Pfister hallmark—rather than sweetness. This comes from 1.32 hectares, or 3.26 acres of vines, growing on a steep hillside with relatively rich, deep soil.

www.domaine-pfister.com