ABOVE: On the Wine Trail

France for Walkers - Walking the Alsace Wine Trail

Walking through the medieval gate into Riquewihr, one of the picture-book wine villages in Alsace, is like stepping back in time. With its steep, cobbled streets, half-timbered houses and wrought iron shop signs, it has survived undamaged and unspoiled into the 21st century. But this is no backwater – it’s home to some of France’s top winemakers, all of whom are keen to encourage visitors to taste their wares.

My discovery of the wine villages clustered along the Route des Vins started gently enough. Sleepy Châtenois, off the main tourist beat, was the starting point for a week’s walking holiday along the Alsace Wine Trail. It was late afternoon so I strolled through the village, past medieval houses, a fine church with a glinting red, green and gold tiled spire, and a stork’s nest on the old town gate, arriving at Gilbert and Sandrine Dontenville’s winery shop. When Sandrine appeared, offering generous tastes of muscat, riesling, pinot gris and gewürztraminer, I began to warm to Alsace. I explained that I was about to set off on a week’s walking holiday and without a car, couldn’t buy much wine, but this, she said, bringing out a fresh glass for the next wine, made no difference.

The arched gateway into the old town of Turckheim was the starting point for the next day’s walk along paths through vineyards and woods to some of the most famous wine villages in Alsace. The wine-growing area of 12,000 hectares (30,000 acres), which runs from north to south along the foothills of the Vosges, is divided into many small properties. In Riquewihr the most highly prized slopes – the Sporen and the Schoenenbourg – rise steeply just outside the village walls and are sub-divided into small strips of no more than a hectare or two, parcelled out among the local wine-growers.

Wonderful wines
Walking or driving through the villages on the Route des Vins, wine-buffs will recognise names such as Dopff or Hugel on the doors of the caves, where you are welcome to browse and taste, but it’s also worth visiting the less well-known growers, whose wines more than stand up to the competition. Each village has at least three or four different caves where you can sample the wine from the grapes grown on the surrounding slopes, and those same wines, among others, are usually on the wine list in the local winstub.

So how do you fit in the walking, when the villages are barely a mile apart, and the open wine shop doors beckon at every turn? The walks are fairly short and there is plenty of time to stop for lunch, with a pichet of riesling in one of the auberges or restaurants. Choucroute, the Alsatian version of sauerkraut, and other traditional dishes involving large quantities of ham and pork, featured on most menus, but lighter dishes, such as chicken cooked in riesling and locally caught trout, seemed a better proposition with more walking ahead in the afternoon.

The gastronomic surprise of the holiday was breakfast at Chez Norbert, my hotel in Bergheim. Three years ago, Norbert sold the hotel restaurant to Sabine, who offers excellent cuisine, with a modern, lighter take on traditional Alsatian recipes. He himself continues to preside at breakfast, open to non-residents and served until 11am in a cosy, beamed winstub. In the middle is an oak table laden with whole cheeses, terrines, salamis and hams, jars of home-made pickles and relishes, bowls of fruit, baskets of bread and rolls, and kugelhupf – cake baked in a ribbed ring-mould. At the weekend, there’s also a side of smoked salmon and foie gras in its lidded earthenware pot. While you’re still taking all this in, Norbert asks in English, French, German or Alsatian, “Do you want eggs?” which he prepares in front of you on a small range with ham, mushrooms, or smoked salmon, or if you really insist, just plain fried, boiled or scrambled. And then for l’énergie, he offers guests a flûte of crémant – Alsatian sparkling wine.

Monumental power
Definitely worth a visit is the château de Haut-Koenigsberg, the ruined castle restored at vast expense at the beginning of the 20th century by Kaiser William II as a medieval museum and monument to German imperial power. Dating from the 12th century, the castle dominates the valley below and is a fantastic viewpoint. In French ownership since 1918, it was the setting for the fortress-prison in Jean Renoir’s classic film La Grande Illusion. Although much visited by French tourists, the castle only became a monument national in 1993, when French conservationists finally acknowledged that the its meticulous restoration by the Kaiser’s architect Bodo Ebhardt was not simply pastiche but work of outstanding merit and interest in its own right. It was a long but gentle walk down the mountain along woodland paths back to Bergheim, and by the time I returned, Norbert’s breakfast had faded and I was looking forward to another dinner in the hotel restaurant.

Alsace has so much to offer besides food and wine. A regular bus service links the wine villages with the town of Colmar and, on a rest day, in Kaysersberg, I took the bus to see Matthias Grünewald’s Issenheim altarpiece in the musée d’Unterlinden. Afterwards, I strolled by the river, and along the medieval streets.

All the villages and small towns along the route have their own individual history and character. The streets are lined with well-preserved 16th and 17th-century buildings, many half-timbered, elaborately carved or with oriel windows, and everywhere there are painted shop signs suspended on decorative wrought-iron brackets. But when you walk through the vineyards to the sound of linnets, greenfinches and serins, you connect with both past and present, becoming aware of how wine-growing has shaped the traditions, the villages and even the landscape itself. And seeing the care with which the growers tend the vines on the red stony soil enhances your appreciation of the distinctive, high quality wines. If, like me, you arrive here new to Alsace, its wine and food, and a week in the vineyards will turn you into a devotee.

Diane Goldrei travelled with Headwater on an independent walking holiday ‘Alsace Wine Trail’ from £519 pp self drive £769 by air (01606 720199 www.headwater.com)
Information on footpaths through vineyards from Riquewihr tourist office: Tel: (Fr) 3 89 49 08 40 www.ribeauville-riquewihr.com E-mail: info@ribeauville-riquewihr.com

For more on Alsace, visit www.tourismealsace. com or call (Fr) 3 89 24 73 50.