Alsace blends the best of France, Germany
Each Tuesday, folk dancers and musicians from a nearby village share their talents on the town’s main square, a fun and free slice of Alsatian culture. On a visit here you’ll enjoy great cuisine, lovely white wine and a proud heritage.
Colmar also has incredible art. The Unterlinden Museum holds Matthias Gruenewald’s circa-1515 “Isenheim Altarpiece,” one of the most powerful paintings ever produced. The altarpiece is a mind-blowing polyptych (a manypaneled painting on hinges) that was designed to help people in a medieval hospital endure horrible skin diseases long before the age of painkillers. The painting tells Jesus’ story, from Annunciation to Resurrection, and patients who meditated on it were reminded that they didn’t have it so bad.
Using Colmar as a springboard, it’s easy to tour the region. Alsace’s Wine Road (Route du Vin) is blanketed with lush vineyards and dotted with delicious, picture-perfect little towns. You can drive, hike, bike, hire a taxi, catch the bus or join a minibus tour like I did on a recent visit (a half-day for about $70). Alsatian villages nestle in valleys on small rivers, which medieval villagers broke into canals and used to power their mills.
Kaysersberg is one of the most charming stops along the Wine Road. As you wander the cobbled streets below the half-timbered houses, you may find a sign with a picture of a wineswilling fellow, which marks what was once the mansion of the town gourmet. I never realized the derivation of the word “gourmet”: Each city in a wine region (like Alsace) had a man appointed to rate and price wines and to serve as the middleman between vintners and the wine-drinking public. He facilitated the sale of wine and knew that having quality food to pair with it would help. Eventually, he became the man with the finest food in town, or the “gourmet.” The actual job of the gourmet survived in Alsace until the 1930s.
Like the gourmet of old, those visiting Alsace’s Wine Road today make a point to try the local wines. Thanks to Alsace’s FrancoGermanic culture, its wines are a kind of hybrid. The bottle shape, grapes and much of the wine terminology are inherited from its German past, though wines made today are distinctly French in style (and generally drier than their German sisters). Local vintners offer a warm — and liquid — welcome. The Caveau des Vignerons de Kaysersberg represents 150 winemakers and offers free and easy wine tastings with experts who speak “a leetl” English.
On my recent trip, my guide took me into the fragrant cellar of Eguisheim’s Domaine Emile Beyer Winery, where enormous wooden barrels age white wine, a method rarely used in modern times.
Until the 17th century, Alsace produced more (and better) wine than any other region in the Holy Roman Empire. Investments in the region then financed many of the beautiful buildings and villages we see today. You’ll get the full benefit of that history by staying in Colmar, still one of Europe’s most enchanting cities, and meandering through the delightful and charming small villages that dot the Alsatian Wine Road.