contactThe granite's influence on the wines:
back to the top of the pagewall of granite stones in the vineyards
The granite is a magma which comes up from deep bedlow the earth surface and takes on round forms like the "ballons" in the Vosges over the years. These round rocks can be seen in the forest above Dambach (Bibelesfelsen) and also above Dieffenthal, the next village where you can walk on the "path of the rocks".
The Frankstein hill is situated on the old primary granite layer. The Dambach granite is a pink granite which contains two micas. The whole mountain above Dambach is a big mass of granite which stops abruptly at the level of the break between the Vosges and the plain of Alsace.
back to the french home pageWhen the granite comes to the surface, some fissures create hollows in which rainwater percolates. The water is acidic, due to the humic acids in the vegetation. With time, the granite decomposes into stones and granite sand (arène granitique), which forms the soil of our vineyards in Dambach.
The composition of the Dambach granite is: -Quartz which is pure, acid silica -White mica (muscovite), which is harder than the black and takes the form of silver flakes. -Black mica (biotite) which dissolves. -Altered feldspath takes millions of years to transform itself into clay in folia.
Why does the granite crop out in Dambach-la-Ville ?
campanula in a fissure of a granite rock
The granite soil gives our wines a beautiful elegance and a very fine fruitiness. In an older Riesling, you can taste the distinctive mineral character of the Frankstein wines. Visit our page "Grand Cru Frankstein, our Terroir"
An old vine stock in the granite sand onthe hills
the roots of the vine find their way through the cracks in a rock
west- east cross-section
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Florian Beck-Hartweg's winery the Dambach granite, geology

The granite was originally covered with several layers of different kinds of soil like sandstone and limestone. They have been eroded away or fell down into the break when the plain of Alsace broke down, separating the Vosges and the Black Forest. This is why the granite crops out in Dambach.
Outcrop of granite in Dambach-la-Ville