Domaine Kientzler, a fifth generation of great wines

In 2009, in the village of Ribeauvillé, in the heart of the Alsace vineyard, Thierry and Éric Kientzler took over the family estate left to them by their great-great-grandfather.

Indeed, in 1895, when Alsace was part of Germany, Alphonse Dominique Kientzler, along with other winemakers, founded the Ribeauvillé wine cooperative, located in the place of the town hall. As viticulture was considered a secondary occupation at the time, it was only two generations later, in 1945, that his grandson François took over the family vineyards and made it his specialty. He was joined in 1971 by his son André, who returned from two years of study at the Beaune wine school and, finding the cellar difficult to access, decided to build a new, larger, and more suitable one outside the town. He also changed the structure of the vineyard, uprooting insignificant auxerrois vines to favor noble grape varieties. Thanks to the finesse of his work, always privileging the expression of the terroir, André was awarded the title of Winemaker of the Year in 1992 by Gault & Millau (a French gastronomic guide).