The Dopff family first settled in Riquewihr in the 17th Century. The first Dopff to be associated with the wine trade, Balthazard-Georges was a cooper. Two hundred years later, his descendant Jean Dopff took up the profession of ‘gourmet’, that is, a wine merchant trading under oath.
The Dopff family has assembled an important collection of vineyards, both around Riquewihr and further afield in Alsace. This domaine is now one of the largest in Alsace wit h 70ha of vineyard. Dopff act both as ‘négociants’ , buying grapes from a large number of growers throughout the region; and as wine producers in their own right.
At the very heart of the domaine are the Grand Cru vineyards:
GRAND CRU SCHOENENBOURG (Dopff own 8.8ha of the 53.4ha total) ‘on the Schoenenbourg Riesling is King’. The vineyard lies to the north of Riquewihr. The name means ‘beautiful hill’.
In the early 1900s, Julien Dopff began the development of a sparkling wine, made the same way as Champagne. He trained for two years at Epernay before applying the ‘méthode champenoise’ to Pinot Blanc from Alsace. Dopff ‘au Moulin’ are thus the inventors of Crémant d’Alsace.
Julien Dopff was also the first, in 1913, to market his Alsace wines in the tall ‘flûte’ bottle - which became obligatory for the region in 1972.
Today, Dopff ‘au Moulin’ continues as a family owned and managed business, with three generations of Dopff's - Pierre-Etienne and his father Pierre Dopff, and Pierre's grandson Etienne-Arnaud.
