Friedrich Becker

The family owns more than 30 hectare and produces over 12,000 cases annually. Positioned on the very border with France in the town of Schweigen, the Beckers have witnessed that border shifting throughout history. Today, they have vineyards on both the French and German side, at the edge of the Palatinate forest—with 50 percent of their land situated on the French side in Alsace.

Their most prestigious vineyard is Kammerberg, a steep single vineyard on deep marl and limestone near Wissembourg, recovered by Fritz Sr. in 1967 . The old vines with mostly German clones and some French grow on deep marl lime soils that produce powerful but also refined, mineral-driven Pinot Noirs (it is all about the dirt here!); St. Paul cultivated in the 14th-century by the Cistercians of Wissembourg, which had since become overgrown but the Beckers uprooted trees and bushes in early 2000 and planted Spätburgunder; and Sonnenberg, with poor limestone soils ideal for growing Riesling.