As a young buck I spent my Erasmus year in Strasbourg, where I fell in love with the local Alsace wine. I came across Mélanie Pfister and her wines at a recent fair in Paris, and tasting them brought it all back!

Mélanie is the 8th generation of her family to run the Pfister wine business. She’s based in the village of Dahlenheim, in the northern part of Alsace and just west of Strasbourg.

It’s a bit cooler and more exposed up here than the rest of Alsace. So the wines end up being a bit fresher and punchier than the standard style.
Mélanie has an amazing CV - she’s worked at Zind-Humbrecht (Alsace), Méo-Camuzet (Burgundy), Château Cheval Blanc (Bordeaux), Château d’Yquem (Bordeaux) and Craggy Range (New Zealand).

So when she took over from her dad in 2006, she had plenty of ideas on how to improve on the winemaking, while keeping a healthy respect for the pioneering work he’d done in the decades before.

Speaking of pioneering work… Mélanie started work to go fully organic in 2018. Before this she was the first non-German to enroll in the ‘Fair n Green’ system - a forward-thinking certification that promotes sustainability and fair business practices in the wine business.