Producer Sylvie Spielmann

FRANCE, ALSACE

The Domaine of Sylvie Spielmann is intimately linked to the Bergheim cru, one of the pearls of the Upper Rhine area, a few kilometers north of Colmar. Here the Spielmann family worked extensively in the extraction of gypsum in the renowned local quarry, a noble material that characterizes the subsoil of this Alsatian terroir. In 1958 Julien, Sylvie's grandfather, who already cultivated the vine, began to bottle and market on his own. The baton then passed to Sylvie's mother and, from 1988, to the latter, who intended to continue the family tradition, moving towards organic farming and the relative official certification, which arrived in 1999. Over time Sylvie has also added practices and biodynamic tools. The 9 hectares of vineyards cultivated today are all treated with the most meticulous care, obviously excluding all synthetic chemical substances, working the soils, proceeding with organic fertilization from composting, favoring mass selections for replanting, sometimes practicing regret, using Poussard pruning for old vines. After a rigorously manual harvest, the pressing of the white grapes is slow, the pressing of the red ones allows the use of non-stemmed bunches. Fermentation starts spontaneously with the only help of indigenous yeasts. In the cellar, any oenological additive or corrective is banned, with the exception of the use of sulphites, used with discretion and not systematically. The vinification takes place in wood, in enamelled steel or stainless steel, with long refinements on the thin lees. This is how Sylvie aims to best express the personality of the vines, the precision of the terroirs, the energy of minerality.