EN 
DE 
FR 
IT Showing all 11 results
Hunter McKirdy
For fourteen years, Paul McKirdy managed the cellar at Zind-Humbrecht, one of the most renowned wineries in Alsace. Since 2023, the Scot has been vinifying wines together with South African winemaking expert Jolene Hunter under the name Hunter|McKirdy own wines in Zellenberg. On 3.5 hectares of Jurassic limestone marl, the two cultivate vines with an average age of 45 years. The grapes are gently pressed for eight hours in a hydraulic wooden press - a technique from Champagne - and the must ferments spontaneously in old Burgundy barrels. The finished wines are filled into Burgundy bottles instead of classic Alsatian flutes, labelled as Vin de France. In this way, a maximum of 25,000 bottles of precise minerality are produced each year.
More about Hunter McKirdy
When champagne technology meets Alsatian vines
The hydraulic wood press works for eight to ten hours. Paul McKirdy presses his grapes as gently as champagne producers - a technique he learnt in 14 years as Chef de Cave at the Domaine Zind-Humbrecht perfected. His partner Jolene Hunter managed exports there before they both took the plunge into their own adventure in 2023. The Riesling for Les Champs des Roches comes from gravel soils, while Sous les Coudriers the floral intensity of the Pinot Gris shows.
3.5 hectares between Riquewihr and Ribeauvillé
From Marc Tempé, the two of them acquired their plots in Cell mountain - a terroir that resembles the Sud Revermont in the Jura. The Jurassic limestone marl characterises wines such as Les Forêts Oubliées, one Auxerrois from 30-year-old vines. The name tells the story of the formerly wooded hills, on which today 14,000 vines per hectare are planted in completely manual labour are cultivated. The vines, which are 45 years old on average, provide the basic material for a maximum of 25,000 bottles per year - a deliberate limitation that Quality before quantity provides.
pH values instead of alcohol degrees
With pH 3.2 the harvest begins - not when the potential alcohol is right. This unconventional approach guarantees constant 12.5 per cent by volume and an acid structure that gives the wines their precise tension. The wines develop slowly in old Burgundy barrels, without the addition of sulphur or other oenological aids. Vin de France is written on the label - a deliberate departure from the Alsace AOC, which Hunter and McKirdy consider too restrictive. Even the Burgundy bottles break with the Alsatian tradition of slender flutes.
When Pinot Gris is vinified like red wine
Samares et Strobiles demonstrates the courage to experiment: Pinot Gris, vinified like a red wine, develops a Depth and structure, that surprises. Le Bois des Ormes shows the red side of Pinot Noir, while Le Jardin de la Source is the cool elegance of the limestone marl soils expresses. Each wine has a poetic name that tells the story of the landscape or its history - from the hazelnut trees under which the vines grow to the forgotten forests that once covered the hills.