Winegrowers of the year: Jacky and Maurice BARTHELME

Virtuoso quartet in Alsace

It is the collaborative and complementary dynamic between two familie that has paid off here.  Jacky and Maurice Barthelmé, with their wives, Marie-Thérèse and Marie-Claire, have run the winery, Domaine Albert Mann in Alsace since 1989 with rigour and conviction without fault. On the 21 hectare estate, every year, Maurice, in charges of the vineyards, delivers Jacky, the winemaker, the grapes which express the nuances of their terroir with the exactness of a goldsmith. The result of Riesling Schlossberg is crystalline minerality: of Gewurztraminer Furstentum, intense, exotique flavours; of the late harvest and noble rote, or the complex Pinot Noirs, each of the estate's wine are impeccably defined in their expression. And as behind every great winegrower, there is often a great women, one must acknowledge the work of Marie-Claire, who manages the estate, and Marie-Thérèse, who, with finesse, oversees the global marketing of the winery. In a region which is comparatively unrecognised for the greatness of its best wines, Domaine Albert Mann is more than the benchmark, it's the epitome. By O.Poels