New and Natural from Philippe Brand and Co.

Today we offer a handful of new arrivals from our friend Philippe Brand in Alsace. Together with his partner, Blandine, and an extended crew of winemakers and friends both near and far, Philippe is approaching natural wine production in a studied and simultaneosly free-spirited way, working overwhelmingly without using added sulfites, with overwhelmingly clean and exciting results!

A brief history of the family domaine brings us to the 1700s, when Philippe's ancestors started a polycutlure farm in Ergerhseim, about 20 minutes west of Strasbourg. They grew wheat, tobacco, and grapes, and had many farm animals as well. In fact, the numerous stalls and barns created for the animals have since been adapted to accomodate the winemaking activities in recent decades. In the 1950s, Philippe's grandfather, Lucien Brand, began to focus primarily on cultivating vineyards, expanding their surface area from half a hectare to just under 10 hectares, and establishing an official winery in 1956. Charles, Philippe's father, converted to organic viticulture in the 1990s, with certification in 2000. Philippe was always helping out at the winery from an early age, and then in 2006, he began to have a more active role, taking the organic farming a step further by converting to biodynamic agriculture starting around 2010, with certification in 2015.

Philippe traveled to Burgundy, and as far as Australia, learning at different wineries, and developing a vision for what he wanted to do back home. He then benefited from relationships with some of our favorite Alsatian personalities, like Christian Binner and Pierre Frick, who he consults with regularly. In his words, the idea behind his approach to winemaking "is to capture all the life that gives us beautiful grapes, retain that life during the vinification, and bring it to you in the bottle." He's clearly doing just that, and his work highlights how pure and balanced natural wines can be. As far as I remember, Philippe told me his father will only drink the no SO2 added wines now, preferring them to the traditional wines they still bottle for the old folks and tourists in the area.

-Eben Lillie