The Domaine Albert Mann is the joint-venture of two families of winegrowers, the Manns and the Barthelmés, who both have been making wine in Alsace since the 17th century. Today the estate is run by the brothers Maurice and Jacky Barthelmé and their wives Marie-Claire (the daughter of Albert Mann) and Marie-Thérèse.
The Mann wines are pure wines full of clarity, with a mineral nerve, that speak of the place where they grew up. Although firm in body, there is nothing showy about them. They are Alsatian wines, more than anything else.
The place where the vines grow and the wines inherit their character from, is of great importance to Maurice, the viticulturist. At a tasting of his wines at Appellation, a wine store in New York City dedicated to organic and biodynamic wines, he had brought with him a photo album filled with loving portraits of the soils in his vineyards. Every other row in the vineyard he has planted with cover crop, which he ploughs into the soil, using a horse as his forefathers did, to feed the soil. When I humbly mentioned to him that I keep a compost pile in my backyard garden, his eyes lit up and he passionately told me about his respect for nature and how he tries to run his vineyards in harmony with it.
The Domaine Albert Mann is certified organic and is currently being transformed to biodynamism. Riesling is planted on the Grand Cru sites of Schlossberg (granitic soil), Furstentum (calcerous soil) as well as Altenbourg (calcareous-marl soil) and Rosenberg (calcerous clay soil).