Historique

 

The Klein family has been a great family of wine growers since 1610.
In 1937, Eric's grandfather named Céleste established his wine-growing farm at 96 rue de la Vallée where his wife was living.

In 1955 he established the bottling at the domain. The winery flourished in 1978 when Céleste's children, Fernand and Marianne (married name Brand) associated to form a GAEC (company). Their vineyard grew from 5 ha to 10 ha, and the name Klein-Brand resulted from this brother-sister merging.

(On the left, Céleste and his wife Léonie – 1938)

This is now the third generation with Eric and Laetitia who took over the winery. Their younger son Lucas already helps them regularly while studying viticulture.

Our vineyard spreads out on three villages, namely Soultzmatt (82%), Rouffach (9%) and Westhalten (9%). Our 46 plots being located on a diversity of soils and terroirs make it possible to produce more complex and more aromatic quality wines.

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Fernand , Eric, Lucas and Laetitia (2015)

 

The Winery

 

The wine cellar

We own a wine cellar with centenarian oak tanks in which we mature our best cuvees.

It was Céleste Klein, Eric's grandfather who started the vinification on this site in 1933, taking over a part of his father's vineyard in Soultzmatt.

In 1978, to enable our development, we built a second cellar with stainless steel tanks, completed since 1999 by Burgondian barrels which are changed every year for the maturing of our Pinot Noir.

 

The bottling

The wine is bottled on the estate where we have a new bottling line bought in 2009. It rinses the empty bottles with filtered water, and bottles at a rate of 2000 to 2400 bottles per hour.

The labeling is done on the same site on a new adhesive labeling machine bought in 2008, which led us to change our labels as well.

 

The pressing site

The winery is equipped with a pneumatic press ensuring a soft pressing of the grape crop. It can press from only one bucket up to 5,000 kg of whole grapes.

So the different grapes aren't all pressed the same way, a traditional cuvee being pressed throughout 3-4 hours whereas the pressing of a late harvest will last 8-10 hours with very gentle rises in press.

 

The Soultzmatt vineyard

 

An exceptionnal terroir

The Zinnkoepflé or Sonnenkoepflé is a majestic hillside with steep slopes that overlooks the picturesque and welcoming Soultzmatt valley.

Thanks to its privileged situation sheltered from the winds and precipitations, creating a warm and arid climate, the Zinnkoepflé enables the vine to prosper in in a shelly limestone terroir, up to 420m high, that is nearly to the top (428m), with a Mediterranean  and Caspian flora.

 

The Klein Brand vineyard estate

The vineyard of nearly 14 ha is spread on more than 46 plots of different sizes. That is what makes the richness of our domain leading to a wide range of wines and Alsace Crémants according to the exposure of the hillsides and the ripeness of the grapes.

So we own a few small plots on the Grand cru Zinnkoepflé, and we are proud of having developed wild lands into very well exposed vine terraces on the "lieu-dit" (locality) called Breitenberg.

The "appellation village" is named "Vallée Noble". It was reduced from 300 ha to 80 ha (including mainly the Grand Cru Zinnkoepflé, and the Breitenberg)  with new regulations including the defined communal appellation. Consequently our cuvees "Vallée Noble" are now named "Prestige"(from the 2011 vintage onwards). The wine-growers of the village are trying to restore the names of the valley vineyard which is regularly cited among the best wines in the world. So our cuvees "Vallée Noble" are named "Prestige" from the 2011 vintage on.

 

   

 

 

Our tasting and sales cellar

We will be happy to welcome you to our estate Monday through Friday from 9 to 12 am and from 1:30 to 6:30 pm, and on Saturdays from 9 am to 5 pm.

Preferential prices at the tasting cellar

You can taste Alsatian wines and Crémant throughout the day, and find a suggestion of souvenir gifts. We can welcome you individually or in groups up to 18 people in the tasting cellar, or up to 50 people in the courtyard in summer or in the wine cellar in winter.

Our occupation leading us to take great care of our vineyard, it is better to announce your visit in advance, more specifically from January to March, as well as in June and during the grape harvesting period (mainly September and October), thank you !