Domaine Albert Boxler

Located in the single-street village of Niedermorschwihr, Domaine Albert Boxler has become, under the stewardship of Jean Boxler, one of Alsace’s greatest domains. The village’s Grand Cru is the granite amphitheatre of Sommerberg, one of the steepest in the region.

Boxler’s ferociously attentive viticulture and limpid winemaking anatomises his 4-ha Sommerberg holding into different sub-zone cuvées, each of shocking intensity: E for Eckberg (highest, coolest, stoniest), D for Dudenstein (granite and limestone, with more clay: more tender and giving), V for the old-vine Vanne and JV for a young-vine cuvée. The approach is the same with his 1.9 holding in Brand – and look out for his Pinot Blanc B, made from 55-year-old vines in the Grand Cru: as sculpted and dramatic as the rest of the range.

This shy, taciturn grower has set new standards of purity, intensity and site expression in Alsace.