Domaine Schoenheitz
Domaine Schoenheitz
[Pure, finely drawn wines from the highest terroir in Alsace]
At the far end of the Alsace wine route, every one of Schoenheitz's vineyards is gathered on the steep slopes of the beautiful Munster valley, at the threshold of the Vosges.
These hillsides hold the highest-altitude vines in Alsace, and in places they fall away so sharply that no tractor can work them.
Granite soils and unforgiving growing conditions coax a pure, delicate expression from the noble grapes of Alsace.
In the Middle Ages the vineyards of Wihr-au-Val belonged to the Habsburgs and to the lords of Ribeauvillé, and the site had already earned a reputation for producing wine of high quality.
Lying at the heart of the Munster valley, it had every condition Alsace soils require to make outstanding wine.
War, however, brought the place to ruin, and by the end of the Second World War it lay entirely derelict.
In the 1970s Henri Schoenheitz senior, who loved the Alsace he had been born into, set about reviving the beautiful vineyards that had all but disappeared.
Little by little he restored Wihr-au-Val to what it had once been.
Clearing the ground and replanting those precipitous slopes was punishing work, and it continues today under his son Henri junior and Henri's wife Dominique.
In 1980 Dominique, freshly trained in oenology and viticulture, and a young Henri Schoenheitz took on their first harvest.
Until then no Schoenheitz wine had existed: the family had been members of the cooperative.
As the only independent growers in the village, the young winemakers established their own style early on.
That style meant farming sustainably and making wines for the table of a serious food lover.
In 1995 vingt sur vins saluted their first fifteen years of work.
Awards have followed steadily ever since — from the Guide Bettane & Desseauve, the Guide Hachette, Wine Spectator, Wine Advocate, James Suckling and the Decanter Awards, among others.
In 2015 they were listed for the first time in La Revue du Vin de France's Guide Vert des meilleurs vins de France.
And in 2020 they joined the small circle of star-rated producers.
