Alsace, Jura, and Savoie

Alsace

Alsace and Lorraine share a turbulent history as a buffer between France and Germany, and the Alsatian culture reflects elements of both societies.

Throughout the Middle Ages, Alsace was a province of the Germanic Holy Roman Empire. France developed into a centralized national state in the 15^th and 16^th centuries, a position which brought it into direct conflict with the Spanish Habsburg house, a branch of Europe’s most powerful dynasty. The French-Habsburg rivalry catapulted the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) in Europe from a localized German religious dispute into a general European war for political dominance. In 1639, French armies seized most of the region of Alsace to prevent it from falling into the hands of the Spanish Habsburgs. The Treaty of Westphalia concluded the war in 1648 and cemented France’s ownership of Alsace until Germany claimed the territory with Lorraine at the conclusion of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871. Alsace-Lorraine enjoyed an extremely brief period of total independence as the abdication of Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm brought the end of World War I, but French troops quickly moved on Alsace-Lorraine and its capital, Strasbourg, and reincorporated the region into the country within a month. Despite a short occupation by Nazi Germany in the early 1940s, Alsace remains French. Though both are former French régions, as of 2016, Alsace and Lorraine along with Champagne now comprise the Grand Est région.

Winegrowing in Alsace dates to the first millennium. There were 160 Alsatian villages growing grapevines by the year 1000, a trend that peaked in the 16^th century. The brutal Thirty Years’ War demolished winegrowing in the region, and the political instability of the following 300 years repressed the resurgence of the vine. French control following World War I renewed viticulture in Alsace, yet many of the region’s current vineyards date