Production of Choucroute d'Alsace is concentrated in the Piémont des Vosges, south-west of Strasbourg. At the heart of this area lies a triangle of communes that the choucroute producers themselves dub the 'magic triangle of choucroute' — Krautergersheim, Meistratzheim and Blaesheim — and which the agricultural sector refers to instead as the 'pays de la choucroute', with Innenheim replacing Blaesheim as the third point: both versions circulate depending on the source.
The Route de la Choucroute, a tourist and gastronomic trail, links eleven communes in the Bas-Rhin: Blaesheim, Entzheim, Erstein, Eschau, Geispolsheim, Krautergersheim, Lipsheim, Meistratzheim, Obenheim, Obernai and Valff.
The soils of this area fall into two complementary types: deep, well-drained silt-loess and sandy-silt soils, which support cabbage crops; and the ried noir des bruchs, areas of wet meadows typical of the Alsatian landscape. The semi-continental climate — hot, stormy summers and cold, dry winters, sheltered by the Vosges mountains to the west — creates ideal conditions for growing cabbage.
The varieties authorised for the PGI appear on a list updated each year by the Commission Technique de l'AVCA — modern hybrids such as almanac, atria or megaton, selected for their suitability for choucroute production — successors to the Quintal d'Alsace, the traditional flat Alsatian cabbage whose place they have gradually taken in the fields.
Key production figures: each year, Alsatian producers harvest several tens of thousands of tonnes of choucroute cabbages across roughly 300 to 400 hectares depending on the year, representing 65 to 70% of French choucroute production.
