Prior to World War II, Ammerschwihr was like a village out of a fairy tale complete with fortifications, towers, grain market, gabled houses and cool wine cellars where empty barrels silently awaited the wine to be made from grapes ripening on nearby hillsides.
A town so rich that it belonged to three sovereigns - the emperor, the lord of Ribeaupierre and the lord of Hohlandsberg. And so it was that back then Ammerschwihr had three provosts, three gates and three towers!
Then in 1944 tragedy struck.
The storybook village was turned into a field of smoldering ruins during the Battle of Colmar. Ammerschwihr arose from this desolation and little by little a new town was rebuilt upon the vestiges of the old.
The war, with all its suffering, spared one thing: the cool wine cellars where empty barrels silently awaited the wine to be made from grapes ripening on nearby hillsides, for Ammerschwihr has remained one of the foremost wine-producing towns in Alsace.
