ORBIS city intelligence

Buying in Obernai: A Meal Assembled Inside the Ramparts

Four shops inside the walls put together most of a meal, minutes apart. One wine estate sits outside on the road to Ottrott and needs a car. Plan the walk and the drive as separate errands.

Pain d'épices Mireille Oster: buy the bread first, because it keeps S1

More than forty pain d'épices recipes are worked at 2 rue du Marché. This is a branch of the Strasbourg house at 14 rue des Dentelles, and a third shop trades in Colmar.

Pain d'épices keeps for weeks, so buy it at the start of the walk rather than the end. Ask which recipes are spiced hardest if you want the traditional Alsatian version.

La Cloche à Fromage: ask whether they age it themselves S2

Affinage is the ageing. A fromagerie doing its own is a different proposition from one buying finished wheels. Ask which cheeses were aged here at 3 rue Dietrich.

Say when you will eat it and how far it is travelling. Ask for vacuum packing on anything soft, and carry a cool bag on a warm day.

Au Bien Boire: the range across estates, not one estate S3

This is the merchant rather than a producer, at 4 rue du Général Leclerc. Alsace bottles sit beside spirits and fine food. Use it to compare several growers without driving between their cellars.

Ask which bottles are hard to find outside the region, since that is a question a merchant can answer and an estate cellar cannot.

Vins d'Alsace Blanck: the estate door, and a drive S4

Organic Alsace wine and crémant come from the estate at 167 route d'Ottrott. That is a drive rather than a walk, so treat it as a visit separate from the town centre.

Ask what is open for tasting before setting out. Estate cellars in Alsace keep seasonal hours, so a wasted drive is easily avoided by calling ahead.

Galerie Goralsky shows contemporary art at 63 rue du Général Gouraud. Chocolaterie Jacques Bockel works bean-to-bar and makes Nut'Alsace, with an Obernai boutique among several in the region.