Clos de la Faille®

Note concerning the situation

The Clos of 1 ha, perfectly partitioned and remarkably situated right in a breach area of a fault, is enclaved between the mountains of the Vosges and the small dry lawn (bushes of amelanchiers, typical for the Mediterranean area, without evoking the orchids Ophrys sphegodes, Orchis mascula, and other flowers and animals). It is located within the limits of Wintzenheim (Alsace), in a protected area, classified as biotope.
It is constituted by coastal conglomerates of the Oligocene having appeared in the Tertiary, during the collapse of the Rhine ditch, but having deposited sediments at successive periods.
The upper part of the Clos encloses shingle of rosy Vosges sandstone of the Buntsandstein and shingle of calcareous sandstone. In the middle, you see the calcareous shingle of the Muschelkalk, grey with very fine grain, and yellow shingle of the Jurassic. In the lower part, you find a mixture of shingle of Vosges sandstone and of white and rosy quartz.
The whole is covered by sandy alluvium with an average quantity of stones, rich in iron oxide and perfectly draining which gives this red colour to the soil.

Note of the artist concerning the label

Since my warm meeting with the Domaine Albert Mann and the first orders of labels, I fixed myself, after long conversations, a stylistic line which is, on the one hand, consonant with the requirements of my artistic preoccupations and on the other hand, with the extraordinary requirement of quality that are the characteristics of these wines and of those who produce them.

This last label is no exception to the rule, even if, as its name "Clos de la Faille" suggested to me, a certain split is perceptible in the very restrained use of the colour and in the graphic aspect.
It's more exactly the question of the synthesis between an abstract mental landscape, a real landscape, undulating and sunny where the grape matures, where, in the middle of shadows and lights, men opened up ways and lived in caverns, and, finally, the more secret and hidden landscape with its fault, its rocks and its soil where the roots find their strength.

François Bruetschy October 2002