2026-05-04 Wine Tasting and Hike to St Croix

 

Time for an easy day. We know we have an appointment for wine-tasting this afternoon and no one was ambitious about a morning activity. So Clark, Kim, and I stayed home while Dave, Dale, and Janis hiked to St Croix and back along the river. First, the boulangerie for croissants. 

Our breakfast croissant

S'landbrot Bakery in St Croix

The hikers went as far St Croix, looked around the town and came back - 8 km (just under 5 miles). They walked along the Ill river path there and back. 

The town of St Croix-en-Plaine is small, much like Logelheim. 

Part of a city wall?

house in the center of town - likely a farm

Janis and flowers in an old well

Like every city there is a war memorial for soldiers who died in WWI & WWII 

After lunch, we drove to Ammerswihr to taste wine at Sick-Dreyer winery. 

Etienne Dreyer now runs the winery, the 17th generation of the winery started in 1563. He has 13 hectares (32 acres) of vines in multiple plots in Ammerswihr and neighboring communities. He told us he produces 40,000-60,000 bottles of wine depending on the harvest which suggests he gets on average about 4,000 bottles per hectare. 

This appointment was organized by Clark based on recommendation from his wine distributor, Laure - the one he and Janis had just accompanied to Bordeaux. Laure distributes wine from the Zick-Dreyer winery  in the Raleigh NC area. So this wasn't just picking a random winery to try. And it was worth the effort.

Etienne and his mother greeted us in the courtyard. We decided to do the tasting in the courtyard to avoid the steps to the tasting room. It was just the right temperature and ambiance outside for this very personalized tasting.

The tasting counter

View from the winery courtyard

tasting in the courtyard

We discovered a cool use for wine corks. I offered to put all our corks in Clark's suitcase, but he deferred.

These wreaths are made entirely of corks

We tasted crémant brut followed by crémant rosé, both of which we liked. Next we tasted two of his Kaefferkopf Grand Cru wines: the Reisling, the cuvée Joseph Dryer Reisling and the Reisling blend. All were excellent.

Every now and then Etienne had to leave us to take care of some business - at one point he loaded a delivery truck with a palette of wine going to Sicily. Another time he had to leave to let renters into one of his 7 gîtes (like VRBO). He left us with 3 bottles to sample in his absence. At one point his mother (age 80) brought out a bowl of nibbles and chastised him for making everyone stand. She insisted he get out stools for us. 

Our only photo of Etienne is  from Clark's video of loading the truck with crémant for Sicily.

Etienne driving the skid loader to deposit the pallet of wine into the truck

Etienne was happy to answer all our questions. We learned that three of his hectares are planted on Kaefferkopf plots out of the 71 hectares in the entire the domain. We asked about heirs to this winery. He has a daughter just finishing her baccalaureate (age 18) and a son who has just finished a degree in business at university. He also has two nephews and a brother who have a winery near Montpelier (not in Alsace) so there's a possibility there. Etienne says he has to work 13 more years before he thinks of retiring, as he is just 50. 

These vines are in Etienne's back yard, but they don't belong to him. 

Dave set out aperos and Dale grilled pork tenderloin. We all went to bed early. We're noticing our age. sigh.