Domaine Ostertag

The Free Bacchus Story

André Ostertag divided his wines into three categories early on: vins de fruit, vins de pierre, vins de temps. Wines of fruit, of stone, of time. It's a way of saying that some bottlings are about the grape, some about the soil, and some about what happens after both.

The domaine has been certified organic and biodynamic since 1997. Muenchberg, the grand cru on volcanic sandstone, is the vin de pierre — the site where the soil argument is easiest to taste, and where Decanter awarded Gold.

He trialled biodynamics on a single parcel before committing the estate: the 1997 trial convinced him and the whole domaine went over the following year. Testing it on one plot and then converting everything is the unglamorous version of a conversion.

Ostertag also broke with Alsace convention by using barrique for some cuvées when the region was almost exclusively neutral-vessel, which drew criticism at the time and now looks like an unremarkable choice.

At eighty dollars for a grand cru with nearly thirty years of certified farming behind it, this isn't an expensive wine by the standards of the company it keeps.