The history of the Humbrecht House

Our grandfather Paul settled at the beginning of 20th century in Pfaffenheim with the will to develop his own vineyard with courage, dynamism and much of love. He thus launched the first estate-bottled wines in the village. Gustave, his son, with the same passion, continues to work in the purest tradition, using only the organic manure and the techniques of his father for working the ground.

Today, we are proud of what these two men attached to their ground transmitted to us. At the dawn of the third millenium, the Humbrecht wines are the fruits of work, passion and love of the land and the fruit it gives, faithful to the authenticity of its region, Alsace.

Our desire today is to respect the land which saw our ancestors being born, to respect those who transmitted to us the know-how, the love of making wine and all the nobility which results from this since 1620.

Thus, with the years passing by, our speciality to work our vines entirely without pesticides and artificial fertilisers has rewarded us so that at the dawn of the 21st century, our vines offer their fruits in colour of gold and ruby, rich in perfumes.

And today we are proud to work our vines according to the Label of Bio-dynamic agriculture, producing beautifully balanced wines.

The Vineyards

The respect of the vine in its natural environment

The annual cycle of work, parallel with cycle of nature, consists of a number of interventions, comprising biological treatments against the diseases and others aiming at improving the quality.

Among the latter, the pruning is particularly decisive. Too severe, it prevents the harmonious development of the vine, insufficient, the vine will overproduce unripen grapes. A this moment, the presence of Paul’s grandson Pierre-Paul Humbrecht, is of utmost importance to the vineyard, to prune correctly and at the right time. Given unfavourable climatic conditions, the harvest may suffer but when the seasons flow normally the right pruning will be rewarded by a juice of very high quality.

When the vine has had its budburst, the disbudding (selection of branches) and desuckering (supression of the growths resulting from sucker from the trunk), are made manually to avoid any harmful effect to the vine. During the bloom, trimming consists in shortening the end of the branches leaving just the right quantity of good quality leafs that the young vine needs. During ripening, the stripping to improve the exposure of the grapes to the sun and thinning out the grapes in excess must be done with precision in order to obtain a harvest of great quality.

Working the ground consists of several heavy duty work. Hilling up the vine, ploughing down and plowing between the rows of vine are accomplished each year. Naturally, Pierre-Paul Humbrecht is using the latest agricultural technologies to ease the task while remaining in harmony with nature, thus our advance towards biological agriculture or rather the search of our origins towards the Earth...

The plant root

When one among us complains about his headaches explaining that all his body suffers from it, no need to go into the details. It shows and the remedy is offered without questions. It is the same for the vine, with the exeption that the plant cannot express itself. It is to the vine grower to be observant, vigilant… For 20 years that Pierre-Paul has spent on the family exploitation, he has plowed, dug and weeded the earthly envelope of the vines with great passion. Discovering the bio-dynamic culture he knew that he had come to the end of his search. His passion has remained unchanged, instead, it developed forward, taking on board all the family and employee to show them what is good for the vines. Thus, we collected plants and flowers, dandelions, nettles, horsetails... etc. to prepare later some infusions and decoctions to treat the vines and the grapes. We learned how to observe the young vines, the trunk, the foliage as one observes a new-born baby for his wellbeing.