Alsace Visit without Wine?

You don’t need to be interested in wine to visit the Alsace (or Burgundy, or Champagne or Bordeaux). There is lots to see and do in the area other than wine. Enjoy Strasbourg, Colmar and all the charming towns, chateaux, the amazing scenery, the architecture, the food. I love bike riding in France, i think that would be very fun along the route de vin, or any where. No need to leave and go to Germany unless you really want to.

Alsace is definitely one the best major European wine areas for people who don't drink wine. You'll have a great time.

Just because you are not a wine lover is no reason to pass up this beautiful area. Castles? Chateau Haut Koenigsbourg. .

Agree with the others - lots of ways to enjoy your vacation in the Colmar area without wine! If you drive to Freiburg take a look at visiting Staufen in route. BTW a wine tasting can be fun and educational!

We spent 4 nights in Colmar in June and we don’t drink. There is so much to see besides wineries. We spent a day just exploring Colmar. Another day we drove to Eguisheim, Kaysersberg and Requiwihr. The next day we took the tourist train around Colmar, then drove to Turckheim. All of the towns are ridiculously cute.

weirdly double posted

We don't drink much and I tend to choose a cocktail before dinner or at apero rather than wine -- we loved our two week stay in Burgundy and our days in Alsace. I have always found vineyard tasting visits a bit of a boor -- they really are much of a muchness but there is so much to see in those areas that you need not have an interest in wine to enjoy them. Alsace has wonderful food -- their pork dishes are superb. beautiful towns. etc. If you enjoy wine then France has marvelous treats in every region (except Paris) but you don't need to drink to enjoy the rest.

Plenty of small towns worth visiting without the need for wine. The already suggested castle is definitely worth visiting. We used Colmar and Eguisheim as bases for a few days, but we had a rental car.

Thank you all!! My mind is at ease...planning away with many of your suggestions! Thanks.

You have no obligation to drink wine, whether in Alsace or elsewhere. On the other hand, if you drink a Coca Cola or any soda while eating a choucroute you will be banned from staying in Alsace for 7 years and 7 days. :))

JoLui ...ha! I would never, never drink Coca Cola (any where if I can help it). I do love wine, but my group is mildly interested in wine! So...you can count on me to partake...the others?? And...I won't let them drink CocaCola, either! Thanks for your insight! :-)

People, including French people, drink cokes all the time in france -- you rarely see a cafe terrace without a table or two with coke bottles -- but yeah with Choucroute garnie -- hanging offense.

Melinda, what you can do is have a glass (just one) of Gewurztraminer vendanges tardives ((late harvest)
It's an Alsatian wine that goes very well with desserts

But be careful! Not at all with Baeckeoffe

JoLui...my hubby and I both love Gewurztraminer...so we will definitely try (but not with Baeckeoffe)! Thank you!

Melinda I'm a wine geek, reformed from the embarrassingly dorky (level 2 sommelier type knowledge 10 years back) to now just mildly annoying obsessed hobbyist. As such, I'll make an effort to keep this compact.

If you like wine enough to try some in Alsace, then you're in for a treat. A few key things to know.

My number one tip for ordering wine in restaurants in Alsace is if you can move one level up from the cheapest wine of the type you want (Riesling for instance), nearly universally the wine will be noticable better. And that step up usually is cheap, often .5-1 euro per glass. Moving up the menu after that might or might not continue to increase in quality.

Alsatian wines are more of a Teutonic style, that is like German wines. The emphasis is on whites and they can have both high acid and more sweetness than a typical french dry white. If you order dry wine often it will still have a slight touch of sweetness. I personally love this style, but some white wine drinkers dislike anything with any residual sugar. Don't be afraid to go up the sweetness scale if that doesn't bother you - generally speaking, the very highest quality wines in the region are medium sweet, not sweet like a dessert wine, but carrying a little more sweetness than the dry ones.

The common local red, produced in much smaller quantities than white, is Pinot Noir. It tends to be a tart style, and it can be hard to find the quality efforts (which do exist, but in a crowd of meh). In particular the cheapest red on a menu is probably not going to be a great experience. Unless you really don't like whites, safest to stick to whites.

The white varieties available are Riesling, Gewurztraminer, Pinot Blanc and Pinot Gris. If it says one of those things on the label, in Alsace it is by law 100% that grape. There are white blends as well, which be labeled Edelzwicker or Gentil. Don't be afraid of drinking the blends because they are often cheaper - usually they are quite good as winemakers pride themselves on blending palatable table wines, and because the quality of the fruit is not necessarily lesser.

Dry Riesling is the Queen of Alsatian white wines. If you like Riesling then no brainer. Gewurztraminer from Alsace has a particular style - it tends to be low acid and kind of fat in the mouth and highly aromatic with a lot of oily spice and herb notes. It doesn't cut food from your mouth, and it's not a refreshing white. But it smells and tastes great. The Pinot Blanc is a great call for people who otherwise are Chardonnay drinkers. It's profile is often more like a medium weight Chardonnay than like a Teutonic wine, and often it will have the least residual sugar compared to the other varieties. And don't ignore Pinot Gris. I probably order Pinot Gris more often in Alsace than any of the others because if there is one on the menu, and if it is not the cheapest wine on the menu, it's usually outstanding quality. Plus I like Pinot Gris

Rose in Alsace is quite nice too - drink the pink if you like Rose.

And lastly, nearly one quarter of the bottles of wine that come out of Alsace are sparkling. It is a major producer of sparkling wine in the world, and quality is excellent. Which it ought to be considering that you're really not very far from the Champagne region. If you like bubbles, it's absolutely no mistake to order a glass or two, and perfectly acceptable, perhaps even optimal, to drink with your meal.

Quickly looping back to your original question, wine in Alsace is part of life and can be easily enjoyed with no winery visits at all if you choose.

I'll stop myself there :) have a good time

Thank you Hank. We are visiting in April and I do appreciate your comments on the wine. And to Melinda - I do agree that you don't have to be a wine drinker to enjoy all that France has to offer!

Definitely get out into the countryside and see the smaller towns. Turkheim is lovely and slightly less crowded. It has a museum dedicated to the Colmar pocket, about WW2 battle for the area. Also a fantastic restaurant, Auberge du Bord. Must have reservations as is quite small. Across the street there is a wine tasting opportunity. You only get small amounts of wine so no need to worry. I can’t recall the name of the vineyard, but the cave is easily found. They also make the best red wine of the region, called Sang du Dragon. You can’t taste, you would have to buy a bottle, but worth the 25€ to do so. Also, look for the stork nests that dot the small towns.

You have plenty of good replies. Wine is easily omitted from this trip. I'll add that better wineries expect appointments for tastings (any maybe by now, a fee), so planning can be troublesome and stops long if you were to "include wine". And that's setting aside police enforcement and safety. OTOH, I feel better about not buying, if I paid a fee.

You didn't make clear if you will have a car. That makes a big difference in convenience and timing. But if you are driving to northern Italy, you might want to look into whether Pérouges, France interests you. It's a unique medieval stone village, with (when we were there) only one small hotel, and it's deserted at night. We chose a luxury room in a converted cave, with a private breakfast terrace overlooking vast meadows and farm fields, not a sound or a soul in sight. Might be a good bicycle base, too.

I don't bike on vacation, but you might consider whether your bikes can handle any gravel or dirt paths, if necessary.

I can't stand wine (or beer). Both taste disgusting to me. But I go to an area known for its wineries every summer and even occasionally go for lunch at a winery (where I drink gasp Coke). Wine growing regions often have beautiful countryside and are worth the visit even for non-wine drinkers.

I rented a car and stayed in tiny Eguisheim. Do rent a car and do stay in one of the little towns, not in Colmar. Colmar is a big city (yes, spend a day exploring its delights) with lots of traffic so you'll waste time driving in and out every day. I am not a foodie, so Eguisheim was fine, but you'll probably want a larger village with more restaurant options. My visit was in late June and most restaurants in Eguisheim were only open from Thurs or Fri through Sunday (wasn't tourist season yet!!).

Alsace has a good tourist website. Even in the tiniest villages I visited there was a good TI and someone who spoke good English. Yes, there are wine route brochures, but also chateau route brochures. I love wine, did only one wine-tasting at a wine museum and it wasn't worth it. I had one glass with lunch, then walked from my B&B to dinner where I could drink without worrying about driving.

I will echo Chani above and now that it has been mentioned, It is quite true that Alsace has a great Tourist Information office network. Most other places I don't even think about going to the TI, but I have in many of the Alsatian villages. Has always paid off. Outside of village touring stuff, they also have hiking and biking maps and routes, and some rent bikes. Chani is right that it is wise to take advantage of this resource.