Alsace is perhaps every wine lovers must go-to destination. Vinously overwhelming and gastronomically enriched, the region sits with its back to France, leaning on the Vosges mountains and its guard up against the east, and the sense of history here is palpable. People are warm and friendly, the place feels organised and clean and once off the tourist routes, a sense of time moving slightly slower than everywhere else is seductive. 

Camille Braun, now in the third generation, own 18 hectares of biodynamically farmed vines around the village of Orschwihr to the south of Colmar. The houses sit in the lee of the Grand Ballon and Petit Ballon, the Vosges highest peaks, and to the south of Bollenberg, a long and unusual tongue that sits on a north south plain between the Vosges proper and the plains of the Rhine. The 18 hectares are split up into over 30 parcels, principally on Bollenberg, but with a small parcel on Pfingtsberg, the Grand Cru overlooking Bollenberg and planted on ‘Calcaire Gres and sandstone, and Kaefferkopf, a Grand Cru in the more northerly village of Katzenthal.

The wines are fermented in either large old Foudre and oak barrique, or in the cellar above ground in stainless steel. Macerations for the whites are generally 12 hours depending on vintage (as in 18) and for the reds, which naturally are quite full bodied this far south) have a short cuvaison and are aged in old barrique. Sulphur usage is always kept to minimum, if it is needed at all. Lune Rousse is a 10 day skin macerated wine which defies description, and as although only a handful of cases are made, is a must taste wine, and the ‘Nature’ wines have no added SO2. As it turns out Lune Rousse was only the beginning. We are now blown away to have tasted and to have a very small amount of Nebuleuse. Biodynamic, skin contact Pinot Gris from Grand Cru Pfingstberg.  It's intergalactic for sure!