Domaine Roland Schmitt

The village of Bergbieten in the extreme north of Alsace, 25km west of Strasbourg, has only one single producer, the Schmitt family, who have been making wine from 10ha of vineyards since the early 17th century.

The domaine is now run by brothers Julien and Bruno, in their early forties, with mother Anne-Marie officially retired but still helping out whenever she can. The estate is named after Julien and Bruno’s father who tragically died in a car accident back in 1993. When Julien joined the domaine in 1999 he converted the domaine to organic viticulture, the harvest is manual and they work with natural yeasts for the fermentation.

The two village wines that we buy, Glintzberg and Thalberg (two lieu-dits that lie right next to the grand cru of Altenberg de Bergbieten), are more accessible in their youth than many wines from the region. One of the factors that explain this is that they work with low, though perfectly safe levels of sulphur, which all too often can act as a barrier against the enjoyment of young village wines from Alsace.