Location

To the west of Sélestat, the Haut-Koenigsbourg castle stands out like a bastion protecting the vineyards which are terraced down on the slopes of the sub-Vosges hills.

At the foot of this imposing edifice, thePraelatenberg Grand Cru wonderfully symbolises the terroirs and men of the Alsace wine-growing area.

This cru is at the geographical centre of Alsace, marking the southern boundary with the Bas-Rhin department. Here the Vosges and Rhineland faults intermingle. The sub-Vosges hills are absent and the Vosges mountain range is directly in contact with the Alsace plain.

Soil

The metamorphic parent rock (gneiss) produces a brown acid soil full of pebbles. Further down, the friable crystalline components develops into very deep sandy-clayey loam. The useful water reserve of these soils is very good (140 to 160mm).

This light and pebbly substrate greatly helps with the rooting.

Microclimate

The south-east exposure and steep slopes stimulate the excellent sunshine which prevails. The eastern horizon is perfectly open with the Rhineland plain which spreads out at its foot. The altitude is between 250 and 350m and the nearby presence of the forest makes it a late-ripening terroir. The dominating west winds lose their humidity on the western side of the Vosges, appearing in Alsace transformed into a foehn, a dry and warm air.

The rainfall is particularly low here with about 600 mm in the year.

Grape varieties

The late-ripening nature of this Grand Cru makes it a particularly favourable terroir for great physiological ripening which is so essential for Riesling.

Despite a highly sun-filled topography due to the slopes, soil composition and cru exposure, the grape evolution is slow and harvests often late.

Heritage transmission

It’s a fact that Romans introduced vineyards in Alsace at the beginning of our era: they needed enormous quantities of wine for their armies. The local terroir attests to this culture by the presence of a Roman military post (Zollstoeckel).

With the donation of Charlemagne to his chaplain Fulrad in 774, it delimited this donation from Steinbach to Eckenbach under the name of Andaldovillare.

The Praelatenberg Grand Cru, or its translation Prelate’s hill, pays tribute to the monk-winemakers who cultivated its granite and gneiss hillsides over a thousand year ago. The Ebersmunster abbey farmed it as of 823. Later, it was coveted by the various lordships who sought protection behind the ramparts of Haut-Koenigsbourg. The latter’s destiny led it to be attached to the town of Sélestat which sold it to the town inhabitants after the French Revolution.

In 1930, Prelate’s hill was abandoned. When the difficulties hit the Alsace wine-making trade, the Sélestat industrialists neglected the unproductive craggy terroirs and turned towards more profitable income sources. As the historian Antoine Dauger remarked, «They didn’t have the spirituality of monks». At this time, Praelantenberg was just an immense wasteland where the natural resources were left forgotten.

But as of 1960, Orschwiller wine-makers finally decided to change things radically and vine stock by vine stock they rebuilt this historic vineyard. Thanks to the tenacity of a new wine-maker generation, Praelatenberg was classed as a Grand Cru in 1992.

Beloved vineyards and land

Specific rules

On the steep Praelatenberg slopes, cultivation practices highly respect the environment.

Here grass cover is very common: it allows a certain biodiversity to be maintained and limits the erosion of steep slopes characteristic of this cru. Tillage work is favoured to allow indigenous flowers to appear. Thanks to the friable nature of the soil, rooting happens quickly and stimulates the terroir expression as of the fifth leaf.

To boost terroir expression as well as the wine quality, Praelatenberg wine-makers respect the specifications book for the Alsace Grand Cru appellation, imposing additional objectives: raise the minimum degree up to 0.5 point and forbid chaptalisation.