Alsace Wine Region & Hugel et Fils: Alsace, France

Date:  11-13 juillet 2011
Location:  Hugel et Fils Winery
Riquewihr, Alsace France

Alsace and Mosel have always been a priority wine region on my top places to visit.  Perhaps not top on everyone's wine tourism list, yet these two regions are known by the pros in the industry as "white wine heaven."  Alsace and Mosel are exceptionally beautiful.  Picturesque might be the best way to describe this special wine region.  I used to read about Alsace in my wine books, then would seek out their wines at my local San Francisco K&L Wine Merchants and Costco!  "The geography of the wine growing area in Alsace is determined by two main factors, the Vosges mountains in the west and the Rhine river in the east. The vineyards are concentrated in a narrow strip, running in a roughly north-south direction, on the lower eastern slopes of the Vosges, at altitudes of 175–420 m.  Those altitudes provide a good balance between temperature, drainage and sun exposure under Alsace's growing conditions. Because of predominantly westerly winds, the Vosges mountains tend to shelter Alsace from rain and maritime influence, and the region is therefore rather dry and sunny."  [Wikipedia].

I arrived in Alsace on a very warm and muggy quiet Monday afternoon, having just left the German Mosel Wine region via the exceptionally smooth German Autobahn.  I drove and drove with my Ipod plugged into the AUX, with my favorite wine country French and Italian songs.  It's about a three hour's drive.  Naturally, when I entered onto French territory, I felt it immediately because the roads were no comparison to the German's.  ;-)  Upon entering the Alsace wine region, my heart began to race in excitement when I started seeing the signs signalling that I had entered wine country!  Huge smile!

I checked into my hotel, located right outside the gates of Riquewihr (literally a two minute walk) and sauntered back out to explore the little town of Riquewihr, home to the famous Hugel Wines.  With just three or so more hours of sunlight left, I wanted to see as much as I could before heading into my wine tours next day.  Good thing I was wearing sneakers, because this town had original cobble stone roads which are impossible to walk on with heels, unless you are from Italy - whose women are born wearing high heels.

 The architecture in Riquewihr has so much history.  Most everything is still its original make.  Especially, the timber homes and shops, all original moldings.  The roofs are really something interesting to look at.  It is quite a storybook town - something you see in children's story books!  The doors all have carvings on top to signify the profession of the homeowner - ie, a Blacksmith, a Cooper, a Miller... Some of the streets are named after the kind of daily traffic that took place there. Ie, Rue de Cheval rightly named after a street that managed daily horse traffic and carriages through the tiny Riquewihr streets.

I ventured into a restaurant that evening and ordered nine flights of Alsatian wines to taste alongside my Alsatian Tarte Flambee - one of Alsace's famous dishes otherwise known as thin crust pizza!  Ohhh they do it very well here in Alsace.

I had a personal vineyard tour arranged with Hugel et Fils winery the next day arranged by Etienne Hugel himself.  I was in awe and thankful for this unique experience.  As we made our way up into the hills of Riquewihr in Etienne's car (whose aircon had broken down, so it was hot, hehe!) Etienne shared with us all the history of Alsace and Riquewihr and of course, the history of Hugel wines.  The sights are breathtaking.  I cannot explain the feeling of getting up close and personal with these magical vines, with a personal tour by Etienne Hugel himself.  We toured every aspect of the family wine production facility later, including the bottling, labeling, and shipping.  We saw the natural wine cellars - which were old jails during the Franco/German wars.  So interesting!  Etienne picked a few many bottles from these cellars for our wine tasting later.  The bottles had dust on them, I loved this!  Come to fine, Etienne is a huge fan of Taiwan and also Hong Kong... makes sense as Alsatian wines pair beautifully with Asian cuisine.  I would be heading to Taipei and Hong Kong the following week, so Etienne and I traded names of our favorite Taipei (Din Tai Fung of course) and HK restaurants and watering holes.

Moving onto the wine tasting... Etienne personalized our experience for us, and it is this kind of attention to detail that defines success.  We each had our printed wine lists with our names on top, the date, and of course, for my sitting - Etienne also gave me a pair of chopsticks!  I loved that he also had the same wine tasting translated into a few other languages.  Chinese and Japanese, of course.  Have to have an international approach these days if one is to take advantage of global opportunities!

When we finished our 18 flight wine tasting (yes, we spit), we moved onto a great lunch in the Alsatian afternoon sun, just steps away from the Hugel wine making premises.  David Ling and Etienne's son also joined us.  Lovely folks and so warm and welcoming.  Charmed life.

For my recent Mosel Wine Region Germany Blog:
http://soledad-bleu-etoile.blogspot.com/2011/09/mosel-wine-region-germany.html