Starting out on his family's wine estate, Domaine Madame Aly Duhr, Abi Duhr has now become one of the top names in Luxembourg viticulture with his own Château Pauqué. He is considered one of the forerunners in making terroir wines, where many other winemakers want to put the grape first and foremost. Abi Duhr believes, however, that a next step should be taken, toward 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, rather than the grape, was at the forefront. It was the culmination of a development of several years, with many innovations in winemaking, such as the use of oak (1982) and the application of malolactic fermentation (1987). Revolutionary innovations for Luxembourg at the time. Château Pauqué, after a recent purchase of a hectare of beautiful vineyard in the village of Schengen, has a total of 4.5 hectares of vineyards. Almost all the vines are planted on steep slopes along the Mosel, 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 and -Fels and Schengen Fels, the only vineyard in the Luxembourg part of the Moselle on red sandstone. In his work, Abi Duhr has been strongly influenced by the French, and especially the Burgundian way of winemaking.