Visiting Alsace next month...

Travel, Wine Tourism, and Restaurants Forum
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Does anyone have any recs for hotels, restaurants, tasting bars, producer visits?

I plan on living off of Munster pizzas and Gewurzt :slight_smile:

Thanks in advance

2

Hotel Kanzel is great. The suites are the size of a condo and relatively reasonable. The best part is they have a driver that will drive you to restaurants at night and bring you back. No worries about drinking and driving. As far as visits, Boxler, Weinbach, Mann, ZH, Deiss, Paul Blanck were all great visits. Kreydenweiss (sp?) and Dirler-Cade are good but a bit further to travel. I love Trimbach wines but what a stuffy visit!

3

We were in Alsace for a week in September. Stayed a couple of nights at Abbaye de la Pommeraie in Selestat, a Relais & Chateaux hotel with a pretty good restaurant (Michelin *). The town isn’t much to look at, but the location was a good base for visiting the area. Be sure to visit Colmar and see Matthias Grünewald’s Isenheim Altar. We also stayed in Strasbourg at La Cour Du Corbeau for several nights, which was quite nice. Originally an inn in the 16th century, it was totally rebuilt inside a year or so ago. The balance of our trip was pretty gastronomic, so except for dinners at the Abbaye and Crocodile in Strasbourg (Michelin ** and a sentimental favorite from long ago), we mostly ate simply in Alsace : tarte flambees, charcroute, foie gras, and drank lots of Riesling. Paul pretty much covered the wineries to visit. The best restaurant in the area is Auberge de l’Ill, but we didn’t eat there this trip. Worth going if you haven’t been. Have a great trip.

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Mark & Paul, thank you so much for the recommendations. I really appreciate the help on where to stay, who to visit, where to eat. You guys are awesome [dance-clap.gif]

5

Hi Samantha, last time I went (2002) I stayed in Turckheim, at a fairly middle of the road hotel but in an old building, and, if you are looking for a quaint Alsatian town that isn’t overrun by the tourist buses like Riquewihr is, I would receommend this town. Zind-Humbrecht is from here, and you are fairly central to the wine route, the only touristy thing they do here is have a night watchman tour. Other towns that offered a relaxed Alsace experience for me were Eguisheim, Kayersberg, and Bergheim.

6

An enthusiastic second for Hotel Kanzel, for all the reasons Paul stated. We’ve stayed there a number of times and always loved it.

Also a strong second for visits to Weinbach, Deiss and Paul Blanck. We lucked out with our visit to Trimbach - rather than the limited English speaking tour, we joined a group of French sommeliers and got a great tour with a fairly massive tasting of curent and library releases (fortunately my wife knows enough French to follow most of the discussion).

Aside from those already mentioned, a couple to consider for stop in visits include Schlumberger (probably the most California like of the tasting rooms), Kuentz-Bas and Bott-Geyl. Although others might not like it, I’ve always enjoyed our visits to Pierre Sparr. With each of the walk-ins, it helps if you let them know you’re familiar with their wines and are interested in things you can’t get in the US.

7

If you’re in Colmar, the macarons from Pâtisserie GILG were wonderful. I liked them better than the ones from Laduree. There’s also a charming wine bar called L’un Des Sens-- very nice place to escape the crowds and kitsch.

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Thank you all for the hotel/producer/town recommendations. I am looking into everything.

Melissa - macarons and wine bar sound perfect [thumbs-up.gif] that thumbs up is so nerdy!

Sean - what is the night watchman tour?

9

Samantha - very informal - after dinnertime a man dressed up as the town’s night watchman does the rounds through the town and its gates and walls and multi-lingually tells stories of the hardships and terrors of the middle ages, followed by a few dozen tourists - takes about an hour - easy walk (small town) and is free but he’d appreciate a euro at the end. Much better than the forced march through Riquewihr with the tour bus groups if you ask me.