Started at his family's wine estate, Domaine Madame Aly Duhr, Abi Duhr has now grown into one of the top names in Luxembourg viticulture with his own Château Pauqué. He is one of the forerunners in the making of terroir wines, where many other winegrowers mainly want to bring the grape into the limelight. However, Abi Duhr believes that the next step needs to be taken, towards wines with a clear terroir expression and with more depth and complexity.
From that idea, he created Clos du Paradäis in 1988, a wine in which the vineyard came first and not so much the grape. It was the culmination of several years of development, with many innovations in winemaking, such as the use of oak (1982) and the use of malolactic fermentation (1987). Revolutionary innovations for Luxembourg at that time. After a recent purchase of a hectare of beautiful vineyard in the village of Schengen, Château Pauqué has a total of 4.5 hectares of vineyards. Almost all the vines are planted on steep slopes along the Moselle, essential for the best quality. The vineyards are planted with pinot blanc, elbling, auxerrois, riesling, pinot gris and chardonnay. The vineyards can be found in the 'lieux-dits' Mertert Herrenberg, Grevenmacher Fels and Paradäis, Wormeldange Nussbaum, Ehnen Bromelt, Stadtbredimus Dieffert en –Fels and Schengen Fels, the only vineyard in the Luxembourg part of the Moselle on red sandstone. In his work, Abi Duhr was strongly influenced by the French, and in particular the Burgundian way of winemaking.
