Antoine Kreydenweiss

I first met Antoine Kreydenweiss at a small wine fair - in of all places Lisbon- in 2014. I remember being struck by the insane tension in his wines. The wines were somewhat older in style but totally alive with that Alsatian spirit. They were see-through in a way. You could taste the terroir but also his winemaking style in every wine - mostly dry, piercing acidity, and this texture/depth that shouted long lees contact and long elevage in large formats (foudre).

My first visit to Antoine was in 2016. The family estate, which has made wine in the same location since the mid-17th century, sits in the extremely quintessential, quaint Alsace town of Andlau. Andlau is directly in the middle of two well-known towns- Colmar and Strasbourg. The cellar and the attached house which Antoine lives in sits next to the town church. Their 12 hectares of vineyard holdings are quite literally surrounding them- you can see 90% of them from the house in each direction as the town sits in a mini valley between 3 grand cru vineyards perched atop 3 mini mountains - Kastelberg, Moenchberg, and Wiebelsberg.

Antoine is a quiet, unassuming character. You would never know what a celebrity he is in Alsace. You see, Antoine took over from his father in 2007. The Domaine and his gregarious father had sort of a cult status in Alsace during his time. Marc Kreydenweiss is widely known as a pioneer of the shift from commercial farming in the region - he and Pierre Frick both essentially introduced Biodynamics to the region at the same time in 1989. When his father abruptly decided to leave in 2006 to buy an estate in southern Rhone, it was a big deal in Andlau (and beyond) on who was going to take the reigns of the estate. At 26 years old, Antoine stepped up to the plate and never looked back.

Antoine was handed 12+ hectares to farm mostly himself. A vast majority of those vineyards are the top grand crus or "crus d'Alsace" (premier cru) in the area. After “fucking up” his first vintage, he's taken the rest of these 13 years or so in stride. His father was a great farmer and character, but the wines themselves (for me) were still quite sterile with an avg of 80-100 ppm... Antoine came in and doubled down on the Bio-d farming, introduced animals to the vineyards, slowed the pressing down a bit, extended the lees contact, extended the elevage of most cuvees, and ultimately lowered the so2 to below ~30ppm total on all of the wines. This wasn't an easy task or nor was it what was expected of him with the large holdings and their avg 100k bottles producer per year. Today Antoine is experimenting more- mostly with maceration. He is seeking to find ways that make sense to him to introduce wines without added so2. He has a motley crew of nearby winemakers and longtime friends that include - Lucas Rieffel, JP Rietsch, Catherine Riss, and Kleinknecht - and they try to meet every single week to taste.

I will always cherish my visits with Antoine and I am always excited to open these wines when they arrive once a year. I implore everyone to try these wines - particularly some of the cuvees like the Rebgarten macerated Gewurztraminer sans soufre, the Kirchberg de Barr pinot sans soufre, the Fontaine aux Enfants and the stoic Kastelberg GC Riesling of which we only import 5 cases of a year.

-Brett