New Arrivals from Florian and Mathilde Beck-Hartweg, and Two Favorites from Laurent Barth
12/20/2024
Florian and Mathilde Beck-Hartweg are young winemakers based in the town of Dambach-La-Ville. First available in the States a few years ago, the wines have quietly grown a loyal and passionate fan base here in New York, for good reason! Farming is organic, and they have stopped plowing in recent years, preferring instead to use the "rollofaquer," a farming tool that pushes over plants to create organic cover and protect the humidity and biodiversity in the soil. All wines age in large old barrels of 1000-1500L capacity. Their locality in Dambach-La-Ville is centered around a concentration of granite terroir that lends a fascinating and scintillating minerality and salinity to their wines. They've been inspired by the dynamic natural wine scene in France and beyond, and have changed their approach in the cellar in the last decade, not just in terms of sulfur use, but also stepping away from the tradition of varietal wines and focusing on terroir expression and parcel-specific blending. For example, instead of separately bottling a Riesling, Pinot Gris and Pinot Noir from specific granitic parcels in Dambach-la-Ville, Florian and Mathilde Beck-Hartweg now make a single wine, 'Granite,' that is a blend of all the grapes from their most granitic parcels, and the resulting wine expresses the intense structure and spice of those sites.
These two are some of the nicest and gentlest winemakers we've met and we are always excited to receive new wines from them.
Laurent took over the family estate in the late 90s and soon converted the vineyards to organic and biodynamic farming. He practises regenerative agriculture, doing a shallow plowing once a year and maintaining a green cover to protect the life of the soil and biodiversity in the vineyard. Laurent’s vineyards are made up of 27 scattered plots and add up to 4.5 hectares. They include parcelles of Riesling and Muscat on the Schlossberg Grand Cru and parcelles of Gewurztraminer, Pinot Gris and Pinot Noir on the Marckrain Grand Cru. All his dry wines are fermented and aged without any SO2 added. He typically adds 1g (sometimes none, and at most, 2) at the bottling and does not filter - this is an important factor in the beautiful purity of fruit and lovely texture in Laurent's wines.
There are in fact several wines available in New York currently from Laurent, but we present two favorites that are in stock at CSW now. If there is interest in the other wines from Barth, please email us at office@chambersstwines.com and we can send a list of available wines!
