Catherine Riss is a young winemaker in Alsace, since the harvest 2014 she has settled in her own cellar in Bernardvillé, a small village next to Reichsfeldand. She overseas her own micro domaine of 3 hectares which she farms biodynamicaly (but only 2.5ha in production, she pulled out half an hectare and is replanting little by little). Her domaine is split in 10 parcels scattered between Reichsfeld (blue slate soils/Schieferberg) and Nothalten (sandstone soils).

She was drawn early on to wine and decided to go to winemaking school and not follow the foot steps of the her family's business. She comes from a restaurant family, her parents and brother run Au Bord du Rhin, which is a traditional restaurant on the Rhein (german/french border).

She interned in Burgundy at Domaine Jean-Louis Trapet, were biodynamic farming started in 1998. She was the winemaker & vineyard manager of Michel Chapoutier in his Alsace holdings for three years.

In 2012 she starts her own domaine at 29 years old, she actually is the only person to start from scratch in 2012 in all of Alsace - in this region of France it's often a generational business. When you are not the daughter of a winemaker, have no winery, cellar, land, equipment nor a large amount of capital to kick start a business it can be challenging - but Catherine knew what she wanted and went for it. With the help of Lucas Rieffel who let her stay in his winery and use his equipment and the help & advice of Antoine Kreydenweiss in the vineyard she has been able to achieve wines that are bone dry with considerable complexity which are already sold out at the winery.

Labels are from the young Colmar artist Julien Kuntz.