Trimbach

Jean Trimbach settled at Riquewihr in 1626 and began growing vines, starting a line that now runs to thirteen generations. The family later moved its cellars to Hunawihr, drawn by the limestone slopes that give their Riesling its spine, and in the 1890s moved again to Ribeauvillé, where the house has been based ever since.

Trimbach farms 63 hectares of its own vineyards, mostly around Ribeauvillé and Hunawihr, and Riesling accounts for about half of everything made, roughly double the share Riesling takes across Alsace as a whole. Grand Cru sites make up almost a third of production, against four per cent for the region. The two reference wines are Cuvée Frédéric Émile, usually an even blend of the Geisberg and Osterberg Grand Crus, and Clos Sainte Hune, a 1.67-hectare monopole inside Grand Cru Rosacker that yields no more than 8,000 bottles and is widely held to be the benchmark for dry Riesling anywhere.

The house style is unbending: whole-bunch pressing for Riesling, cool slow ferments, malolactic discouraged and early bottling, all in the service of freshness rather than weight. Jean Trimbach describes the aim as wines that are concentrated but not heavy, fruity but not sweet, bracing rather than fat. Chemical treatments were dropped from the vineyards and cellar in 1972, and every estate vineyard has been certified organic since 2023. Annual production runs to about 95,000 dozen.