Caves and Wineries in Ribeauville

July seems to be holiday season for European wineries and tastings are difficult to arrange. No problem as I prefer to taste a large number of wines in one session in any case. Visiting individual Domains means you take whole days just to taste a few different producers.

So, are there any places in Alsace where you can taste a range of wines from various producers in one venue?
And in Burgundy? I’ve heard about Caveaux in MSD and Chassagne. Are there any others wine shops or similar that usually have a wide range of wines open for tasting at one time?

And finally in Northern Rhone , I know the big negociants and co-ops offer a large range, but are there any caveaux like the above with a range of smaller producers of Hermitage or Cote Rotie all available for tasting at the same time hopefully in Tain/Tournon, but possibly in Ampuis, too in July

Merci in advance!

Bump.

Thanks Henri. Can you give me some clues as my French isn’t good enough to read that.

Is there anything like that in Colmar?

If you want to taste in burgundy you really need to visit domaines. This includes the better negociants. You need to write or call (or have your preferred wine merchant do so) to make an appointment.

Maureen, could you call Leroy, DRC, etc, and pull a few strings for me?

Also, in

click on the various links, and you’ll find many have an English version.

Henry, thanks again!

I would love some personal recommendations and personal experiences. It’s difficult to know exactly what somewhere is like from descriptions like “tasting and sales possible.”

I visited France last year in July and spent time in N Rhone, Burgundy, and Alsace.

I booked appointments successfully at Levet and Graillot. I dropped in at the Chapoutier shop without appointment (regular business hours). Was unsuccessful at visiting Jamet.

In burgundy I couldn’t get any producers to return my calls or emails. I approached all of them in English and was trying to book visits on a Saturday and Sunday. I was told by locals that the weekend booking was the issue, but I can’t help it wonder if it was the english, being in July, or the lack of industry arrangements.

Alsace seemed more friendly to drops-ins and many large producers seemed to operate similar to retail shops. Successfully dropped in at Hugel and Weinbach.

Hope that helps!

Thanks Chris. If only it was as easy as Maureen makes it out in Burgundy!

As I said in my OP, I don’t want to visit producers individually.

Apart from MSD and chassagne, are there any more Caveaux with lots of open bottles in CdN or CdB?

Can you taste lots of wines in the cooperatives in Alsace?

Is there a place in Tain or Ampuis where you can taste a lot of different producers in one location?

Any information would be great, but specific answers to the 3 questions about would be better.

Thanks.

If you don’t want to visit producers in Burgundy, fine, but they are closed in August, not July. I have been to Burgundy several times in July (including last year) and tasted at a number of producers. I am not making this correction for you - I just don’t want anyone else to get confused.

I think there are caves in most villages. Seems like a pretty sterile way to visit Burgundy (if I just wanted to taste wines, I would probably go to the Paulee in NY or SF instead), but to each his own.

I have been to ones in Chassagne Montrachet and in Morey St. Denis. I am pretty sure there is also one in Gevrey. A good source of information on visiting Burgundy is at Bourgogne winegrowers and their expertise - Bourgogne wines?

If you think you will be tasting Leroy and DRC at the caves, you will be disappointed. Go to higher end restaurants.

Can you taste lots of wines in the cooperatives in Alsace?

Maybe, if you’re lucky, but they’re oddly averse to the sort of business they could do if they opened everything they make. Most likely the answer is no, unless they’ve already opened a number of bottles for an important occasion or they deem you sufficiently important.

But note: you’ll be tasting cooperative wines. Nothing domaine-made. Wolfberger (the cooperative of Eguisheim, and the biggest producer in Alsace) will not be opening anyone else’s wines, and they won’t even be opening most of their own wines. Certainly nothing worth traveling to Alsace to taste. You’ll mostly be tasting their basic varietal wines and perhaps a few blends and crémants, plus one or two lower-end crus, and possibly they’ll toss in a late-harvest wine at the end. For someone like Wolfberger, that’s about 3% of what they could open.

The basic truth is that unless you’re willing to visit producers in Alsace, you’re pretty much out of luck in terms of tasting what they make except by buying a bottle with lunch or dinner. Your only option would be the wine bars mostly concentrated in Strasbourg, and to a lesser extent Colmar, but note that the ones that carry higher-end wine tend to be natural/bio focused, so you’ll be tasting those producers only (and you’ll be paying for every glass).

For what it’s worth, the number of wines produced by most Alsatian houses means that you would be spending most of the day tasting, and probably at two (three if you choose carefully) addresses. To not do this is to really not be wine tasting in Alsace. If you don’t want to, then you don’t want to. But there’s no alternative path. Sorry.

Alsace and Mosel seem to closed in July. I don’t know about Burgundy/Rhone. I might not taste anything in the short time I’m there. So be it. I’m sure it’s a lovely place. On reflection, the co-ops don’t look particularly interesting.

I’ve been to Burgundy before and it’s really difficult to fill the schedule with domains as some don’t reply and others take ages. You have to do it in waves over a long time. If you do arrange 3 tastings in a day you might taste 6 in each. That’s 18 wines. In a caveau you might do that in 30 minutes which leaves enough time to visit one or two more and have lots of spare time to visit vineyards and other stuff. That may not be everyone’s ideal way to spend time in Burgundy, but we’re all different.

I actually prefer seeing vineyards than seeing cellars. They start to look the same after a while.

Some people may find it easier to arrange appointments due to connections and think my way isn’t appealing. I wish it was easier for me.

I was joking about DRC, etc., I hoped that would be apparent! I know that the caveaux won’t have the top wines, but at least there is a chance of finding some hidden gems that haven’t become famous yet. Unlikely? Maybe, but who knows…

Time is limited, there are a lot of logistics, lots of things out of my control and sometimes the easy way leads to a more relaxed time. I’m not just going to taste wine, I’m trying to fit wine tasting into a schedule of other activities. Lots of compromises are needed. Believe it or not, there’s more to life than wine!

Thanks for everyone’s advice. Keep it coming!

Again, specific to Alsace: because of climate change, harvest windows — even for top domaines — are sometimes shifting back into August, which was previously almost unheard of. So it’s probable that some winery folks are moving up their vacations. And if you’re visiting in late July, that might be an issue. (FWIW, though, even normal August vacations mean shutting things down and/or last-minute prep in July, so it’s not usually a great time to visit smaller houses anyway. Though not as bad as trying to visit small houses during harvest.)

But it’s improbable that decent to good houses with established, no-appointment-necessary tasting rooms aren’t open in July. So you might not be able to visit Albert Boxler, but Hugel’s tasting room is certainly open. (In fact, it’s even open in August; I just checked.) Ditto the two Dopffs, and several other producers who’ve quite consciously placed tasting rooms in the most-visited village in Alsace. You can taste some eau-de-vie as well, if that’s your thing, both from the wineries and from dedicated distillers. There’s an entire day of tasting plus tourism in a village you were probably going to visit anyway, without even having to get behind the wheel.

Extremely tourist-oriented villages like Eguisheim, Kaysersberg, Ribeauvillé, Obernai, and so forth will have no lack of options. You’ll taste more and _much_better if you can make appointments, but at least you can taste.

I do find it somewhat unlikely that appointments aren’t available at certain houses, though. Trimbach, for example, has around ten people who could run you through a quick (meaning about two hours’ worth) tasting, and while not all of them bear the last name Trimbach, with enough notice (and no requests for a weekend tasting, or a lunchtime tasting, which almost no winery in France is going to accept unless you’re very, very important) and — this is key — enough flexibility in dates/times, there almost has to be someone around. Just down the road from Trimbach, Kientzler has a regularly-staffed tasting room. There are several other open tasting rooms in Ribeauvillé, and I doubt any of them would close before August vacation. Etc.

We visited Alsace for a week last June.

On our first day we hired a tour guide. Since it was Sunday there weren’t many wineries open so we went to two of the big ones, Pfaff and Wolfberger. Both were nice but nothing like the places we visited later.

We stayed in Colmar and on our second day we stumbled upon two wineries in town, Domaine Martin Jund and Caveau Robert-Karcher. The wines at both places were fine but not great, convenient but I don’t remember any GCs at either place.

In Ribeauville we walked in at the Louis Sipp winery where we tasted through thirteen dry wines and three cremants - a couple of the Grand Crus and an old vine (vieilles vignes) and we had a 4 pm appt. with Maison Trimbach. We didn’t get quite the number of wines to taste here, so we focused on the Rieslings and Pinot Gris.

In Kientzheim we had a 2:30 pm appt. at Domaine Paul Blanck. We must have sampled up to 18 different wines, some of their classics, lieux-dits, a good number of grand cru and a vendage tardive. We also managed to walk in at Domaine Weinbach, by far the highlight of the trip as far as quality of the wines.

that’s not what he was saying.

w/r/t Paul Blanck, the first time I visited (granted, as a writer with an appointment), I spent the first two hours tasting micro-site vinifications of pinot blanc, before I got to any other grapes. They make a lot of wines, from a lot of separately fermented batches within their various sites, and it’s a remarkable study in mesoclimate and terroir if one has the time.

Roger, thanks for that. Very informative. Are their many options in Colmar? We don’t have a lot of time, so I’d rather just be a tourist than visit run-of-the-mill domains - I’ve tasted my fair share of humdrum Alsace wines.

ZH are closed and I’ve twice contracted Trimbach without reply. Quite disappointing. They are the two I really wanted to visit. Not sure who else make exciting wines in Alsace. Albert Mann?