Alsace Wine Label Question FAQ

Apr 10, 2018 5 Replies

Hi all. My wife and I just enjoyed a bottle of 2012 Domaine Ehrhart Pinot Gris. Written on the label, under the line Pinot Gris and above the line 2012, is IM BERG. What does that mean/signify? I know that berg can usually mean town or village. But what is IM? Is that the name of a village? Or does it mean something altogether different?



TIA, Jack


"im" in German is short for "in dem" (in the), so "im Berg" means "in the town"

HTH Mark Lipton

Quite a few "domaine Ehrhart", but it is quite probable that in any case "Im Berg" is the name of a parcel without special ranking (meaning no grand cru level)

"Im" is the contracted form of the German "in dem", i.e. "in the", and "Berg" is mount, mountain, slope or anything similar, so not in the (usually less favored) lower places in the valley

Town/village is "Burg"

Apologies for the wrong direct reply, I just found out about Thunderbird now using "Followup" instead of "Reply" for newsgroups

Thank you Mark and Eric for your replies.

Jack

In older German, Berg was also used to refer to walled towns and cities. So, for instance, the old Prussian city of Königsberg (now Kaliningrad) and Nuremberg, to name a few. Context is hey here. Vineyards are more likely to planted on mountains rather than in walled cities (I wonder if Berg might be the German equivalent of "Clos"?), but in that case I'd expect to see "am Berg" rather than "im Berg." Prepositions are always dicey to translate, though, so perhaps your reading is the most sensible.

Strangely, I did *exactly* the same thing.

Mark Lipton

It's been some 30 years since I actively practiced (contemporary) German, but your am/im remark definitely makes a lot of sense, and your reading is thus most probably the most sensible one.

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