2022 Dry Wine Trophy – Riesling – Cave du Roi Dagobert

The Cave du Roi Dagobert, in Traenheim, ALSACE.

The King Riesling by Dagobert

The Couronne d’or

Led by Christophe Botté since 2016, La Cave du Roi Dagobert shows a dynamism, an ethic that it embodies on a daily basis, particularly in terms of environmentally responsible culture and sustainable development. Finally, it has a taste for challenge. It participates regularly in the wine contests among with the Mondial des Vins Blancs Strasbourg.

The Cave du Roi Dagobert is located in Alsace in the département du Bas-Rhin, in the town of Traenheim, 20 kilometers from Strasbourg, at the North Gate of the Alsace Wine Route which will celebrate its 70th anniversary in 2023. 

The Cave du Roi Dagobert represents a vineyard area of 1000 hectares with 250 winegrowers from 20 municipalities.

The geology of this vineyard is rather homogeneous, no geological faults, no narrow bands unlike some vineyards of Alsace (like for example Turckheim ) but a vineyard with an open geography since it is located on Couronne d’Or – the Golden Crown – ( historic vineyards of Strasbourg dating from the Middle Ages ).

More specifically for the terroir, it is characterized by limestone marnly clay soils (a little gypsum and sandstone nevertheless) which allows it to guarantee to the vine the moisture necessary for a good development.

The wines grown on this basic terroir give very interesting wines to taste after 3 years and therefore very good wines to keep.

Welcome in Traenheim at la Cave du Roi Dagobert !

The six emblematic white grape varieties of Alsace are cultivated here : Gewurztraminer, Muscat, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris, Riesling, Sylvaner. Recently the choice has been made to plant Pinot Gris and Gewurztraminer young vines.

Concerning the Pinot Noir, the potential is proven and really starting to be recognized beyond Alsace: the Pinot Noirs of the Cave du Roi Dagobert are elegant, without heaviness and sold at reasonable prices.

Recall that since the decree of May 9, 2022 in the  Journal Officiel of May 13, 2022, that is after more than 20 years of steps, the Pinot Noir ( in total, it represents 10% of the Alsatian vineyard ) finally accesses to the appellation AOC Alsace Grand Cru. To date, only two terroirs are concerned: the Grand Cru Kirchberg de Barr in the Bas-Rhin and the Grand Cru Hengst in Wintzenheim in the Haut-Rhin.

Obviously the Riesling is also the King of the grape varieties within La Cave du Roi Dagobert !

rewarded Riesling 2020 Racines et Terroirs

at the 2022 edition of Mondial des Vins Blancs Strasbourg

Riesling 2020 Racines & Terroirs

won a Gold Medal and the Dry Wine Trophy

This Riesling is a work of specialists, state of the art : an assemblage composed of several Riesling from 10 different plots so 10 specific terroirs elaborated each year by oenologists.

Description of the awarded Riesling by Christophe Botté, General Manager of the Cave du Roi Dagobert and the Cave de Turckheim :

On the nose : “2020 is a very nice vintage for Alsace, quite warm so interesting for beautiful maturities. We have a perfect expression of what we are looking for in Riesling Racines et Terroirs, I mean a balance between fruits and minerality”.

On the palate : “The wine is characterized by a frank attack due to the Riesling variety and a great length on the palate with a nice acidity”.

Agronomist engineer, arrived in Alsace 26 years ago, Christophe Botté is more Alsatian than Burgundian !

From 1998 to 2008, he managed the Cave de Turckheim ( Alsace, Haut-Rhin ) then a Cave in Arbois from 2008 to 2016 before returning to his first Alsatian loves by taking over the Cave du Roi Dagobert for 7 years now.

Since 2016, he has been the Managing Director of the Cave du Roi Dagobert as well as the Cave de Turckheim since, through a partnership, some technical stages were shared, including bottling and quality control. No less than 90 people work in both cellars.

The Cave du Roi Dagobert represents a vineyard area of 1000 hectares with 250 winegrowers from 20 municipalities.

For Christophe Botté, the Mondial des Vins Blancs Strasbourg is an essential annual event.

“Being rewarded at this international competition is a high quality professional recognition. The jury is prestigious, the competition is reliable and certified and the organization very rigorous. The team of the estate is proud because all the energy put in daily by the winemakers and oenologists gets a worldwide recognition. It is read and seen and makes it possible to establish a reputation in the wine sector first and then by the consumers” he recalls.

Happy to renew the participation of the two wineries at the Mondial des Vins Blancs Strasbourg 2023, Christophe gives a first impression on the 2022 vintage, the grape varieties of which will be tasted in April by our 70 international juries. “At this point, we can say that the 2022 vintage will be excellent. On a marly soil, water remains present in the soil and helps to avoid drought”. The yields were controlled, the grapes matured without the degree of alcohol being too high, which suggests more than promising Riesling.

Christophe Botté has a vision, experiments, plans and intends to keep with his team as leader of organic wine production in Alsace and to go even further in the environmental approach. 

We’ll have to deal with global warming. For the moment, it is rather favorable to the responsible approach in our region (with the heat there is less growth of herbs, less diseases related to humidity such as mildew) but the grape varieties are basically adapted to the semi-continental climate of Alsace. How will all this evolve? What balance should we find between human labour, grape varieties, terroirs and the upset climate? A topic that concerns the largest bodies such as the OIV (International Organization of Vine and Wine which patronizes the Mondial des Vins Blancs Strasbourg) and which is the subject of many research and prospective : it will be the concern of the historical wine regions in the coming decades.

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@credits photos Cave du Roi Dagobert

Frédérique Pierré 12/23/2022