By Matthieu Maurice · Route Manager, ATG Oxford
Welcome to Alsace
My name is Matthieu, and I have been guiding travellers through Alsace as Route Manager for the Classic Alsace circuit with ATG Oxford for over ten years. Every single time I stand above the vineyards and look out over the Rhine plain towards the Black Forest, I feel the same quiet wonder — and that never gets old.
Alsace is a region unlike any other in France. Tucked between the Vosges mountains to the west and the Rhine river to the east, it has been shaped by centuries of French and German history, passing back and forth between the two nations and absorbing the best of both cultures. The result is a place of extraordinary richness: in its architecture, its language, its food, its wine, and above all in the warmth of its people.
This blog is my way of sharing everything I love about this region — the views, the villages, the vineyards, the flavours, and the hidden corners that most travellers never discover. Whether you are planning your first visit or your tenth, I hope these pages inspire you to explore Alsace slowly, deeply, and with an open heart.
“Alsace does not reveal itself at once. It rewards those who linger.”
The Alsace Wine Route
The Route des Vins d’Alsace stretches for nearly 170 kilometres, winding south from Marlenheim, just west of Strasbourg, all the way down to Thann near Mulhouse. It passes through more than 70 villages and covers some of the most beautiful vineyard landscapes in all of Europe.
The route follows the eastern foothills of the Vosges, where the mountains create a natural rain shadow that gives Alsace one of the driest and sunniest climates in France — ideal for viticulture, and for hiking of course. The vines grow on a remarkable diversity of soils: granite, limestone, sandstone, clay, schist — and each type of soil expresses itself in the glass.
The Grands Crus
Alsace is home to 51 classified Grand Cru vineyards, each one producing wines of exceptional character and complexity. These are the vineyards that generations of winemakers have understood to be exceptional — places where the combination of soil, slope, aspect and microclimate produces something greater than the sum of its parts.
On the Classic Alsace Route, I love recommending small family domaine — where you can taste the wines directly produced from the vineyards that you walked through during the day. These encounters are, for me, the heart of what Alsace is about.
The Grape Varieties
Alsace is the only major French wine region that labels its wines primarily by grape variety rather than appellation. The seven noble varieties are Riesling, Gewurztraminer, Pinot Gris, Muscat, Pinot Blanc, Sylvaner, and Pinot Noir — the only red grape permitted.
Riesling is perhaps the greatest of them all — dry, mineral, and built to age for decades. Gewurztraminer is the most immediately seductive, with its extravagant aromas of lychee, rose petal, and exotic spice. Pinot Gris produces rich, textured wines of great complexity. Each variety tells a different story about the Alsatian terroir.
“A glass of Riesling from a great Alsace Grand Cru is one of the world’s finest white wines — and still one of its best-kept secrets.”
Bottling of a local Crémant Rosé
The Vosges Mountains
Behind the vineyards, rising gently to the west, are the Vosges — one of France’s oldest and most beautiful mountain ranges. Covered in dense forest of fir and beech, dotted with granite summits and emerald lakes, the Vosges provide a magnificent backdrop to the wine route and offer a completely different landscape to explore.
A stone bench in the vines — the perfect place to pause and take in the Vosges
From the Vosges Mountains, you can see the Black Forest to the east across the Rhine — a view that perfectly captures the geographical position of Alsace as a bridge between worlds.
The Vosges are threaded with well-marked hiking trails, many of them ancient pilgrim routes or transhumance paths used for centuries by farmers moving their herds to summer pastures. Walking these paths through the forest, emerging suddenly into a clearing with a view over the vineyards below, is one of the great simple pleasures of a stay in Alsace. At ATG Oxford, we spend a big amount of time selecting the best routes, and keeping them up to date, to make your experience in Alsace unique and memorable.
The Alsatian Villages
If the wine route is the spine of Alsace, the villages along it are its beating heart. Each one is different — some dramatic and fortified, others gentle and flower-filled — but all of them share that distinctive Alsatian character that sets this region apart from anywhere else in France.
Half-Timbered Architecture
The signature image of Alsace is the half-timbered house: a wooden framework of beams filled with plaster, painted in warm ochres, greens, and reds, decorated with window boxes overflowing with geraniums. This style of construction, known as Fachwerk in German, is shared across the Rhine with the villages of Baden-Württemberg, and it is one of the most visible signs of Alsace’s dual cultural heritage.
In villages like Obernai, Ribeauvillé, Kaysersberg, and Riquewihr, the medieval streetscapes have survived almost intact. Walking through them in the early morning, before the day-trippers arrive, you feel as though you have stepped into another century. The silence is broken only by birdsong and the distant sound of a fountain.
Fortified Villages and Medieval Walls
Many Alsatian villages preserve their medieval fortifications: towers, gateways, ramparts. The stork, Alsace’s emblematic bird, has an irresistible habit of building its enormous nest on top of the highest chimney or tower — and in spring and summer, you will spot these great birds everywhere as you hike on the ATG Classic Alsace Route; a joyful sign of the season.
The autumn is perhaps the most spectacular time to visit. When the vine leaves turn gold and amber in October, the whole landscape is transformed into something from a painting. The light is softer, the crowds thinner, and the harvest is complete — the cellars full and the winemakers finally at rest.
Flowers and Gardens
Alsatian villages take enormous pride in their flowers. The competition for the most beautifully decorated village is fiercely contested, and from spring through to autumn, window boxes, hanging baskets, and public gardens blaze with colour. Roses, geraniums, dahlias, begonias — every available surface seems to bloom.
A foxglove in the Vosges forest — wild flowers are everywhere in Alsace
Alsatian Gastronomy
Food in Alsace is a serious matter. This is a cuisine shaped by abundance — by the richness of the land, the expertise of its farmers and chefs, and by centuries of cultural exchange between France and Germany. It is hearty, generous, deeply flavoured, and rooted in local produce of exceptional quality.
On the ATG Classic Alsace Route, you will also find several Michelin Stars Restaurants and other Gastronomic Restaurants really worth the visit for a well deserved meal after your day hike.
Choucroute garnie — the great dish of Alsace, served here with local beer and mustard
The Iconic Dishes
Choucroute garnie is the dish most associated with Alsace: braised sauerkraut piled high with smoked meats, sausages, and boiled potatoes. Eaten with strong mustard and washed down with a cold Alsatian lager or a glass of Riesling, it is one of the great comfort foods of the world.
Tarte flambée — or Flammekueche in Alsatian — is the region’s answer to pizza: a paper-thin flatbread spread with crème fraîche, onions, and lardons, baked in a wood-fired oven until the edges are charred and the centre is molten. In a traditional winstub on a winter evening, there is nothing better.
Baeckeoffe is the ultimate slow-cooked dish: pork, beef, and lamb marinated overnight in Alsatian wine with vegetables, then sealed in a terracotta pot and baked for hours. Its name means “baker’s oven” — in the old days, women would leave the pot at the baker’s on their way to the laundry and collect it on the way home.
Cheese, Bread and Pastry
Munster cheese, produced in the valleys of the Vosges, is one of France’s great washed-rind cheeses — pungent, creamy, and best eaten with a scattering of cumin seeds and a glass of Gewurztraminer, which is its perfect partner. The combination is one of those rare matches that seems entirely inevitable once you have tried it.
Alsatian bakeries are extraordinary. The kugelhopf — a brioche-like cake baked in a distinctive ring mould and dusted with icing sugar — is found in every bakery window. Bredele, the small spiced Christmas biscuits made in dozens of different shapes and flavours, fill the markets from November onwards with the scent of cinnamon, anise, and orange zest.
“In Alsace, every meal is a small celebration of where you are.”
Matthieu’s Tips for Travelling to Alsace
The Classic Alsace route takes in vineyards, villages, mountains and remarkable food
When to Go
Alsace is beautiful in every season, but each has its own character. Spring (April–May) brings blossom and the first warmth. Summer is lush and green, with long evenings and open-air dining. Autumn is spectacular — harvest season, golden vines, cool air.
How to Travel
The Classic Alsace route with ATG Oxford is designed to be explored on foot, stopping whenever something catches your eye, is the perfect way to experience the region. The distances are manageable, the tracks quiet, and the views are unforgettable. The GR5 and the many local trails offer a different perspective — slower, closer to the land, and with the bonus of those Vosges forest paths that no vehicle can follow.
Where to Stay
The region is well served by excellent hotels, some of them housed in historic buildings in the centre of the wine villages— the morning light on the vineyards, the sound of church bells, the smell of bread and croissant from the boulangerie at seven in the morning: these are the details that make a journey memorable.
A Personal Note
After more than ten years of guiding guests through this landscape, I remain convinced that Alsace is one of Europe’s greatest travel secrets. It combines world-class wine, extraordinary food, medieval architecture, mountain scenery, and a cultural richness that comes from sitting at the crossroads of two great civilisations.
Come with curiosity. Come with time to linger. And come hungry — the food here will not disappoint.
I look forward to welcoming you to my region.
