Domaine Pfister dates back to 1780, which is already a long history. But in Dahlenheim, the village Pfister calls home, wine goes back even further. The village was mentioned for its wine as early as 884, when records show it was supplying wine to the Abbey of Saint Michel de Honan.
Dahlenheim is west of Strasbourg, in the northern part of the Bas-Rhin. In this part of Alsace, the Vosges Mountains don’t reach the same heights as they do farther south, so they offer less protection from cold weather. Dahlenheim sits on the side of the Engelberg hill, with its vineyards planted on the slopes rather than out on the Rhine plain. The cooler climate, hillside sites, limestone, and less sandy soils result in a style that is elegant, mineral, and very precise. Mélanie and her father, André, work 43 parcels, totaling about 25 acres. Roughly a quarter of the vines are Riesling.
André Pfister started at the domaine in 1966, when he was just 15, and in 2026 he celebrated 60 years there. Mélanie officially took over with the 2006 vintage, but André remains active in the vineyards. Before taking over, Mélanie set out to train at other estates and learn as much as she could. The roaster was impressive: Zind-Humbrecht in Alsace, Méo-Camuzet in Burgundy, Château Cheval Blanc in Saint-Émilion, Château d’Yquem in Sauternes, and Craggy Range in New Zealand. In 2005, she made the first Cuvée 8, now called Mel. It was a blend she had wanted to make for a long time, and the name honored her place as the eighth generation of Pfisters to make wine at the domaine (and the first woman!). The next major step came after the 2010 harvest, when Mélanie began building a new cellar.
At the start of 2018, Mélanie and her father decided to move fully to organic farming, and they received certification in 2021. In 2019, they also began using biodynamic preparations in the vineyards. For them, this was not a dramatic change of direction so much as the next logical step. Mélanie’s father had already stopped using herbicides in the early 1980s and had moved to a no-till approach. At first, he treated the parcels more or less the same way. Over time, and especially with Mélanie’s input, the work became more site-specific. Today, each parcel helps determine what gets planted between the rows, be it grasses, legumes, or grains. Some parcels are mowed and mulched, while others are planted with cover crops that can be rolled down and left flat between the rows with a machine called a rolofaca.
Most of Mélanie’s wines are fermented and aged in stainless steel. The main exceptions are her top Pinot Noirs and the Pinot Gris Silb, which spend time in oak. More recently, she has also started working with 700-liter sandstone amphorae, especially for the orange wines. The wines spend a long time on their lees: the base range usually ages for close to a year before bottling, while the upper range often stays in cellar for 18 to 24 months. The wines are generally fermented dry and bottled with only a small addition of sulfur. In a typical year, the domaine makes about 15 wines, with total production around 5,000 cases.