Vintage years

These are wines which unravel after 3 to 4 years and have a keeping potential of at least 15 years. With age, they reveal a spicy character, a straightforward acidity, delicious with very beautiful bitter notes on the finish.

Location

The major part of the Engelberg Grand Cru is found in the municipal territorial of Dahlenheim, a charming wine-making village located at the gates of Strasbourg in the Mossig valley which gives off, as Serge Dubs says, «a calm, serene atmosphere, a joyous simplicity which must have rubbed off onto the nature of these wine-makers.»

The Engelberg Grand Cru colline des anges stretches over the southern side of the Scharrachberg, a hill made from the large Saverne fracture field and overlooking the surrounding landscape.

It’s an uneven and often steep slope, interspersed by embankments and shrubs and cut in the middle by a former quarry from which rises an impressive chalky cliff. The 14.80 hectares of this Grand Cru area are facing south, thus benefiting from generous sunshine.

Soil

From a geological standpoint, this Grand Cru belongs to the family of marl-limestone terroirs.

Soil and subsoil are visible over a depth of around twenty metres thanks to the geological section left by the former quarry. Rocks from the great Eolithic period of the upper Bajocian epoch can be seen (-178 to -170 million years ago).

The yellow surface rock thus shelters holes of lithophagous lamellibranchs, deposit left by the sea which covered the region during the whole Jurassic period.

The hillside quarry also reveals a fissured limestone parent rock allowing roots to grow deep and find the regular water supply required for vines. On the surface, the clay-limestone soil is poor, pebbly and not very thick (40-60 cm). The soil is actually very porous and not very sensitive to water stress.

Microclimate

Engelberg is close to the Vosges mountain range, located at a fluctuating altitude of 250 and 300m, which gives average early-ripening. Its island-like character makes Engelberg a well-aerated vineyard where grapes are rarely affected by botrytis. Furthermore, the southern exposure provides maximum light making for a progressive and full ripening of the grapes. The average rainfall reaches 600 mm/year.

Grape varieties

Over history there are two varieties that have been used on the Engelberg Grand Cru – Riesling and Gewurztraminer. Riesling is particular happy in this pebbly soil which easily reheats and doesn’t suffer from summertime dryness (Sittler and Marocke, 1981). A ground which is also perfect for Gewurztraminer, whose roots like to go deep into the soil.
Pinot Gris is also present on this terroir but to a lesser extent.

Heritage transmission

As of 884, the Benedictine monks from the Honau abbey, built by the Duke Adalbert, brother of Sainte-Odile, were already talking about the Nobilis vinis from this terroir, mentioning for the first time in Alsace, the grandeur of these growth areas which made their vineyards become famous throughout the region. Later it was the Foundation of Saint Thomas (1229) and the Hospices de Strasbourg (1320) who became attached to the wine quality from the colline des anges.

Victor Canales
SYNVIRA

Since at least 1255, Dahlenheim, the Honau monastery owned a wine-cellar where two knights had to deliver noble wines, nobilis vinis. In 1229, another knight, Walter de Brumath, was obliged to annually deliver 4 aumes (around 600 litres) of wine, selected from the four vineyard plots which it owned in the locality. In 1297, the Cistercian abbey of Neubourg received a donation of vine stocks as a base for an anniversary mass. Dahlenheim mostly appears to have been a genuine wine cellar for the Strasbourg-based ecclesiastic institutions. In 1251, the Prince-Bishop of Strasbourg alluded to a lithe of 9 aumes (around 1350 litres) in the village. According to a ruling in 1303, the chapter of Saint-Pierre-le-Jeune owned vineyards and a cour collongère (group of farms under a common law and depending on one lord, able to dictate laws).

Claude Muller
Vignes et Vignerons d’Alsace, p. 181

In 1320, the Strasbourg hospital received wine for leasing out vineyards from the lieu-dit Engelberg.

Serge Dubs and Denis Ritzenthaler
Les Grands Crus d’Alsace, p. 72

The Saint-Étienne abbey was not left out and received a tithe in wines in 1364. On June 2, 1406, after having bought a torcular vini (wine press), the Dominicans of Sainte-Marguerite, still purchased on December 1, 1443, one and a half acres of vineyards near the lands owned by the knights of Saint-Jean de Dorlisheim.

Claude Muller
Vignes et Vignerons d’Alsace, p. 181

Beloved vineyards and land

The soil-related factors impose no specific constraints except a grass covering allowing to limit erosion. For the same reasons, vines were planted on terraces in some steeper areas making the periods of strong erosion rarer. The rules followed by Engelberg-producing wine-growers are those from the common foundation decreed in the the Alsace Grand Cru appellation specifications book.

Some annual production conditions have been applied since the 2011 harvest:

• The yield is set at 55 hl/ha.
• The minimum, average natural alcohol degree was defined for Riesling and Muscat at 11°5, and for Pinot Gris and Gewurztraminer at 13°.

In local management, wine-growers agreed upon making dry Riesling with less than 9 g/l of residual sugar.