Winery Louis Freyburger & FilsEdelzwicker

The Alsace-based group is France’s biggest wine exporter and the biggest private winemaker in the country, with 68 properties spread across the country. It is also the largest exporter of French wine, accounting for around one in every six bottles sold in international markets, with brands including Calvet and J.P. Chenet. The company, whose full name is Les Grands Chais de France, recently shifted its strategy in a bid to become a global wine producer with estates in a variety of premium wine r ...

André Hugel was an 11th generation member of Famille Hugel, one of the region’s most influential and highly-regarded wine families. The Hugel family settled in the town of Riquewihr, located in the heart of Alsace, all the way back in 1639. André ran Famille Hugel along with his brothers, Jean and Georges, as it developed into one of the world’s top producers. It owns 30 hectares (ha) of prime plots in the Haut-Rhin area, half of which are classified as Grand Cru, and it buys grapes from a furth ...

Do growers make wine – or do markets? Growers, of course. Yet markets define the scope of the grower’s creative efforts by what they reward or sanction. When markets are neglectful and unresponsive, there’s little the grower can do but conform. It’s a problem the world over. Here’s an example. The river Moselle/Mosel rises to the wet west of the Vosges mountains, then curves in a long green arc heading north through Epinal, Metz and (along the left bank) Luxembourg’s Grand Duchy, turning east at ...