Thierry Meyer, Vincenzo Arnese and Claire Thevenot MS tasted 81 wines, with 2 Exceptional, 8 Outstanding and 54 Highly recommended

Alsace grand cru Riesling: Panel tasting scores

81 wines tasted

Exceptional 2

Outstanding 8

Highly recommended 54

Recommended 14

Commended 3

Fair 0

Entry criteria: producers and UK agents were invited to submit their dry Riesling wines from any Alsace grand cru, from both the 2012 and 2022 vintages

Terroir and temperature to the fore

This was a highly successful tasting in which 79% of the entries scored 90 points or more, including two Exceptional wines (see recommendations, below), and an impressive 22 scored 93-94pts.

The high scores were evenly distributed between the two vintages: 2022 and 2012. The vintages’ distinct climatic characters were on show, as well as strong terroir typicity from certain grands crus – it was an insight into how different terroirs performed across different climatic conditions.

And while reputed growers produced wonderful wines in both vintages, the tasting showed that lesser-known houses also produced very good, more affordable wines.

In the hot 2022 vintage, hilltop vineyards and marl-based terroirs were particularly successful.

Grands crus such as Furstentum, Rangen, Schlossberg and Zinnkoepflé, with areas at higher elevations, up to 400m or more, were less affected by the heat.

Most wines with character from this vintage are already drinking well. In contrast, 2012 was cooler and more classic, and only wines from fully ripened fruit have evolved positively.

‘The quality across both vintages was remarkable’

While several wines with a straightforward Riesling expression had already begun to fade and simply tasted like ‘old Riesling’, those that had achieved full ripeness continued to display great character, with the added aromatic complexity that comes from ageing.

As Claire Thevenot MS pointed out: ‘Alsace grand cru wines must possess a combination of terroir minerality and fruit from the grape itself; a balance of tension and fruit is key to their ageing potential.’

‘The quality across both vintages was remarkable,’ said fellow taster Vincenzo Arnese. ‘The wines showed excellent drinkability and highlighted the enormous potential of the Alsace grand cru appellation.’

Furstentum, Hengst, Kitterlé, Rangen and Schlossberg are among the most renowned of the 51 Alsace grands crus, known for their distinctive terroir character. Some of the best producers showcased this mineral character in both vintages.

Overall, if the varietal Riesling aspect dominates the wine, it may be advisable to consume them relatively quickly.

The judges

Alsace grand cru Riesling 2022 and 2012 panel tasting results:

Wines were tasted blind

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‘We are not good at selling Alsace,’ says Marc Wucher of Le Parc Hôtel in Obernai – a 30-minute drive from the Alsatian capital, Strasbourg. ‘Our history is complicated,’ he explains, pointing to a photo of his mother, who helped Alsatian men escape conscription into the Germany army during World War II. The Third Reich annexed Alsace, suppressing the French language, books, funerary inscriptions, posters and other symbols. Even so, some Alsace natives willingly fought on the German side.

In southern Alsace, as she inspects Riesling grapes at 12th-century Château Ollwiller, French oenologist Marie Bordy points to an adjacent mountain, where her great grandfather died while fighting for the German army in World War I. During the battle, French bombs damaged the estate which, along with the rest of Alsace, was part of Imperial Germany between 1871 and 1918.

Both establishments have been renovated over the years, reflecting Alsace’s complex architectural history – from medieval timber-framed buildings of the Germanic Holy Roman Empire to 18th-century French Baroque. The region’s impressive range of soils is just as varied as its architectural tapestry: from sandstone and slate to limestone and clay.

A flavour of history

Alsace’s history is complex, but it provides a fascinating backdrop for the region’s wine and cuisine. Germanic influences loom large, from grand cru vineyard names such as Schlossberg and Rosacker to local food staples pork, potatoes and cabbage. Flute-shaped wine bottles bear the names of non-French varieties such as Riesling and Gewurztraminer.

However, in common with many compatriots, Alsace wine council representative Foulques Aulagnon insists: ‘We are thoroughly French.’ Climate change may have led to recent oscillations between heavy rain and heatwaves and drought, but ‘the fact remains that on the other side of the Rhine, it still rains more than in Alsace’, Aulagnon says. Alsace is one of France’s driest and sunniest wine regions, where cool summer nights and warm days permit grapes to ripen evenly.

Spring and autumn are ideal seasons for a visit, as Alsace’s semi-continental climate often brings cold, if dry, winters and sometimes stiflingly hot and stormy summers. But any time is a treat for wine lovers, given Alsace’s impressive variety of wines and food options – with 33 Michelin-starred restaurants, Alsace is a region that’s strongly represented in the famed gastronomic guide’s 2024 edition. Its scenic, Instagrammable wine route is also dotted with centuries-old villages home to half-timbered houses and ever-present flowers nestling in sloped vineyards, each with its own fascinating history.

Alsace wine: The facts

Area planted (2023): About 15,500ha

Producers: 3,030, including 710 wineries and wine-growers

Appellation: Alsace AP officially instituted in 1962 and today accounts for about 70% of production; Alsace Grand Cru AP introduced in 1975, progressively expanding to 51 sites classified as such, accounting for about 5% of vineyard area and 3.5% of total production in 2022

Authorised grand cru grapes: Gewurztraminer, Muscat, Pinot Gris and Riesling, but also more recently Sylvaner in Zotzenberg and Pinot Noir in Hengst, Kirchberg de Barr and Vorbourg, with blends allowed in Altenberg de Bergheim and Kaefferkopf

Crémant d’Alsace: Sparkling wine made using the traditional method; accounts for 33% of production

Vendanges Tardives: Sweet wines made from grapes picked when overripe (literally ‘late harvest’)

Sub-regions: The southern Haut-Rhin, which counts 37 grands crus, and the northern Bas-Rhin with 14

Must-visit-wineries

Any trip to Alsace should include a visit to 17th-century Domaine Gresser in the charming town of Andlau. The domaine, which has been certified organic since 2010, obtained biodynamic certification in 2022. Owner Rémy Gresser shows visitors rocks to illustrate how single-varietal wines taste different according to terroir. Try his Grand Cru Kastelberg Riesling, the only grand cru on slate in Alsace, Gresser says. The 2020 bursts with mid-palate juiciness, framed by racy, saline wet stone. His late-harvest Gewurztraminer from 1983 illustrates how well such wines can age, with complex flavours of confected fruit, wet earth, spices and truffle: ideal for roast chicken or pasta with champignons (and truffle shavings).

A 30-minute drive from Andlau, Maison Trimbach in Ribeauvillé – also established in the 17th century – has long been recognised as a top producer. Its wines are better than ever, from entry-level offerings to the only Alsace wine that’s appreciated just as much for investment on international markets as for drinking – the Clos Ste Hune Riesling. The superlative 2019 vintage, not yet released, marks its centennial and it clearly outshines the 2018, which is marked by the heat of the vintage. Try the Cuvée Frédéric Emile Riesling, crafted from two grand cru vineyards – an excellent-value dry wine. Although it initially established its fame through strong brands, Trimbach also boasts four single-vineyard grand cru wines.

In Eguisheim, a picturesque village of 1,700 people packed with about 20 restaurants, you must sample the superb wines at Léon Beyer. Marc Beyer, along with children Yann-Léon and Anne-Sophie, continues a wine lineage that spans 14 generations. Top restaurants worldwide serve Léon Beyer wines. Be sure to try the Les Ecaillers Grand Cru Pfersigberg Riesling 2015, which combines wet stone freshness derived from the limestone soil with vintage opulence. The youthful colour of the Comtes d’Eguisheim Gewurztraminer 2011 – bottled at a relatively low 5g/L residual sugar – entices, with a taut yet vivacious palate that offers white pepper, ginger spice and shaved almond.

Further south, visit the splendidly renovated18th-century castle and gardens of Château Ollwiller, which has crafted excellent wines since Mathieu Kauffmann became cellar master in 2021, not long after the renovation of the vat room. An Alsatian oenologist with more than 12 years’ experience at Champagne Bollinger (he left in mid-2013), Kauffmann is already crafting good sparkling Crémant d’Alsace (which will improve), as well as nuanced grand cru Riesling, from sloped plots that include century-old vines.

Take in a stunning view of the historic monopole Clos St Landelin vineyard in Rouffach at Domaine Muré, where brother and sister team Véronique and Thomas Muré are making excellent wines at different price points. Try their superb Pinot Noirs, such as the bright and precise 2022 ‘V’ Grand Cru Vorbourg. Their Crémants d’Alsace range from a delicious non-vintage to the seamlessly smooth and opulent 2016 Grand Millésime.

Your Alsace address book

Accommodation

Le Parc Hôtel, Obernai

To enjoy Alsace’s charming villages, wineries, restaurants and other landmarks, you need a car. A good departure point is Le Parc Hôtel, which marked its 70th anniversary in 2024 and combines elegant tradition with thrilling modernity. Its impressive Yonaguni spa is a recent addition that Alsatians would rather keep secret – Decanter readers, you heard it here first…

Léonor Hôtel, Strasbourg

Opened in 2021, the Léonor features casually chic (and comfortable) rooms in what was once a police station. The elegant 19th-century façade is now a historical monument. Dine at the hotel restaurant, managed by the team from the exceptional Michelin two-star La Fourchette des Ducs in Obernai.

Restaurants

Amitié, Hartmannswiller

Opened in May 2024, Amitié has a large outdoor terrace. Reserve the private table in front of the open kitchen, where chef Holger Strütt uses garden produce to craft regional and international dishes. Don’t miss the lobster soup – some restaurants skimp on the lobster, but not this one.

La Pompette, Strasbourg

Ticks all the boxes, with superb food and a relaxed yet elegant style. The menu changes monthly and the pricing, in our inflation-plagued era, is also friendly.

Le Buerehiesel, Strasbourg

Set in Strasbourg’s gorgeous Orangerie park, this restaurant, with chef Eric Westermann at the helm, has a deserved reputation as a top dining destination in Alsace. An absolute must: frog’s legs in chervil and butter sauce, crafted from a 45-year-old recipe, balanced by an Alsace Melfor vinegar. Sommelier Maxime Petit has 1,000 wines from which to choose the right pairings.

Le Restaurant, Le Parc Hôtel, Obernai

Marie Wucher and her husband Cyril Bonnard have worked at top restaurants in Paris, Tokyo, Las Vegas and Dubai. The refined cuisine here deserves a Michelin star. If available, don’t miss the Wagyu beef carpaccio with chanterelles starter, or the opulent and copious Noix St Jacques with mushrooms and Parmesan sauce. Sommelier Jean-Noël Graff offers optimal pairings from a long wine list.

What to drink in Alsace

The region is famous for grapes such as Muscat, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris, Gewurztraminer and especially Riesling, for which – since 2021 – non-late harvest Alsace Riesling must be ‘dry’, as defined by EU regulations. But higher Burgundy and Champagne prices and better quality in recent years have made both Alsace Pinot Noir and traditional-method sparkling Crémant d’Alsace increasingly popular. From 2013 to 2023, Crémant production leapt from about 240,000hl to nearly 325,000hl, accounting for 33% of Alsace wine production. Pinot Noir has increased from 85,000hl in 1989 to close to 130,000hl last year: its highest-ever production percentage at 13%.

While in Strasbourg: Suggested stops

• After marvelling at its beautiful interior, climb the 330 steps up the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Strasbourg, said to be the sixth-tallest church in the world.

• Wine shopping? Visit the 200m² Comptoir des Vignerons Alsaciens, housed in a 16th-century building on Place Gutenberg – choose among nearly 400 wines from 75 independent winemakers.

• Long lunch? Opened in August 2024, 3.14 bistro and wine bar lists 100 wines by the glass, served with charcuterie and cheese. The ground level offers a 1960s-style bistro ambience, contrasting with the 1920s speakeasy decor on the lower level, complete with a hidden passage to a cigar lounge. A wide choice of spirits includes fine whiskies and Cognacs to go with your cigar.

• Walk it off: After dining at Le Buerehiesel, pay a visit to the beautiful gardens and lake at the Parc de l’Orangerie, which surrounds the Pavillon Joséphine, a spectacular example of early 19th-century neoclassical architecture.

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Alsatian wine without food is like homemade waffle cones without ice cream. What makes a visit to the northeastern French wine region especially appealing is the extent to which culinary options have improved. Having lived in Strasbourg for the better part of the last 27 years, I have noticed over this time an upturn in customer service – and not just for the expensive locations.

Dining in Alsace: Nine top spots to try

Amitié

Hartmannswiller

Part of the recently renovated 12th century manor Château Ollwiller, Amitié opened in May 2024 and combines elegance and insouciance with indoor and outdoor seating, including a private table facing an impressive Galician-made Charcoa grill for superb steaks. Chef Holger Strütt has international experience, using estate garden grown produce to craft regional and international dishes. Don’t miss his lobster soup. Some restaurants skimp on the lobster, but not here.

L’Atelier du Peintre

Colmar 

From grilled sea bream with cassis and chanterelles in sweet onion sauce with dill, to roasted rabbit with gnocchi and sweet and sour zucchini served in a saffron and coriander infused reduction jus, chef Loïc Lefèbvre and his team continue to merit the Michelin star earned in 2011. Centrally located in the historic Alsatian city of Colmar, an ideal choice for a special occasion. Elegant décor within a 15th century building in semi-private rooms, the attentive and friendly service meets the standards of the superlative cuisine served here.

Le Belvédère

Voegtlinshoffen

Take a break from the Alsatian wine route for local cheese and charcuterie – the fresh oven-baked pretzels are not to be missed – and delicious Crémant at this wine bar located at Maison Joseph Cattin, known for traditional method sparkling wines. My favourite is the Cattin Sauvage Brut: organic, dry, precise and delicious. While sipping, soak in a magnificent view of vineyards, the Vosges mountains, the Black Forest and even the Alps.

Le Buerehiesel

Strasbourg 

Set in Strasbourg’s gorgeous Orangerie Park in an early 17th century building, a top dining destination in Alsace for lunch or dinner. Chef Eric Westermann and his team stress local ingredients – from in-season vegetables and herbs grown on location, to locally farm-raised pigeon. An absolute must: frog legs in chervil and butter sauce, crafted from a 45-year-old recipe, balanced by Alsace Melfor vinegar. End your meal with the colour coordinated brioche à la bière – an original and delicious dessert of pain perdu infused with locally brewed beer, accompanied by poached pear and beer ice cream. Sommelier Maxime Petit has 1,000 wines from which to choose the right pairings.

Ondine

Strasbourg 

Chefs Noémie D’hooge and Marin Remy propose delicate yet intensely flavoured foods such as filet of river trout, which is the tenderest I know. Marinated and left for six days in the refrigerator, it is cooked at low heat for two hours then served with zesty citron sauce and mild fennel puree for textural complement. Try the celeriac, cut like tagliatelle and barbecued for savoury flavour served over celeriac puree, topped with whisked egg whites, vinaigrette and parsley. An autumn menu preference is homemade saffron-infused ravioli stuffed with garlic cream and kaffir lime zest, topped with pumpkin sauce with saffron and lime leaves for zing. A wide choice of both ‘natural’ and conventional wines (and non-alcohol infusions). Two years after opening, Ondine has obtained a deserved listing in the 2025 Michelin Guide. Be sure to reserve as it only fits 12 guests in a discrete location near Petite France.

Marie & Cyril: Le Parc Hôtel

Obernai 

After having worked for top restaurants in Paris, Tokyo, Las Vegas and Dubai, Marie and husband Cyril Bonnard use local produce for refined cuisine in a discerning setting that merits a Michelin star. As a starter, savour the sheer tenderness of their Wagyu beef carpaccio accompanied by chanterelles in a tangy ponzu truffle sauce. A main course highlight is copious and opulent pan seared Noix de Saint Jacques with mushrooms in a creamy parmesan sauce. Sommelier Jean-Noël Graff has a long wine list with many top Alsatian dry whites for optimal pairings.

La Pompette

Strasbourg 

‘The French lack the word “hospitable” but we strive for that,’ says co-owner Ilona Garnier, a trained sommelier who has worked at Chateau Montelena in Napa Valley and the luxurious Hôtel Cala Rossa in Corsica. With zero pretentiousness, La Pompette, which opened in 2023, proposes superb food in a relaxed yet elegant Art Nouveau setting with top notch staff, especially talented chef Mahaut Michel. The menu and by-the-glass selections change monthly. In October 2024, I enjoyed homemade mushroom-stuffed ravioli in a light cream sauce with livèche parsley, served with pan-seared girolles and chanterelles. Another plus is the pricing, which in our inflation plagued era, is also friendly.

La Vieille Enseigne

Strasbourg 

For traditional Alsatian cuisine with class, seek no further. Richly elegant wooden seating and décor – including original lithographs by famous Alsatian artist Tomi Ungerer – sets the stage for a menu ranging from homemade goose foie gras and seven-meat choucroute Alsacienne to pikeperch filet on a bed of choucroute in a Riesling sauce. The fresh vegetables are superb and do not miss the best onion tart I have ever had in my over 25 years in Alsace. Wine lovers reach nirvana with over 400 Alsatian wines on the list that include verticals of top estates like Maison Trimbach and Domaine Josmeyer. Contrary to what the name suggests, this restaurant not only survived opening just before Covid struck, but it has thrived with a recent, well-deserved listing in the Michelin Guide.

3.14 Bistrot Authentique 

Strasbourg 

This spot proposes 100 wines by the glass and local charcuteries and cheeses – and has become a big hit in the heart of Strasbourg. Emilie Forterre – who worked for Grands Chais de France for six years – and husband and chef Pierre Bonnet have created an opulent yet easy-going dual setting: 1960s-era bistro ambiance on the ground level and 1920s speakeasy décor on the lower level including a hidden passage to a cigar lounge. They propose a wide variety of spirits including single malt whiskies and fine Cognacs to go with your cigar.

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Alsace native Thierry Meyer has dedicated his wine career to this region he calls home.

Writing and sharing tasting notes and insights into Alsace’s wines since 1999, Meyer is the founder of L’Oenothèque Alsace society and www.oenoalsace.com, a comprehensive website committed to this northeast region of France.

A judge at Decanter World Wine Awards since 2013, this year marks a decade since Meyer’s appointment to Regional Chair for Alsace in 2015.

Looking forward to solidifying this milestone in May at judging week, he comments, ‘Alsace has a huge diversity of wines, grapes, terroirs and styles. Therefore, I expect to taste a large range of wines again this year, mostly from the 2022 vintage.

‘2022 was a hot and dry vintage that produced fruity, subtle wines in the plain areas, and slightly fresher styles on the hillside. It will be interesting to find some of the most successful wines, either coming from cooler areas or from older, deeply rooted vines that were able to cope with the draught. We might also taste early bottled wines from 2023, which gives an overview of this ripe and hot vintage.’

Taking note of vintages, changes in wine quality and styles across his decade-plus journey at DWWA, from sparkling Crémant d’Alsace to Grand Cru noble varieties and luscious sweet Gewürztraminers, Meyer explains how the panel tastes Alsace wines and what the judges are looking for when awarding Gold, plus gives advice to producers in the final weeks before entries close on 15 March.

What’s the importance of vintage in Alsace?

Alsace used to be a late harvest region, with harvest usually taking place around the end of September. Also, harvest used to last for a long period, due to the different ripening cycles of all grape varieties in different places. During harvest, weather can be dry and sunny or at times a bit more wet and generate noble rot – sometimes not so noble.

The overall quality of a vintage is determined by two factors: the potential of the best wines of course, but also by the quality distribution. Vintages that suffer from health problems can produce huge variations of quality, both among various geographical areas of the regions, but also between the smallest and the largest growers, who can’t organise harvest in the same way.

As a result, the panel is sometimes impressed by the number of very good wines of a given vintage, like 2019. Sometimes a couple of grape varieties only are that successful. In more challenging cases, like 2021, we are impressed by the gems which can outperform the best wines from other vintages.

How are Alsace wines organised for tasting?

We carefully organise the flights for sparkling, red, dry and sweet wines. White wines from the generic AOC Alsace are sorted by grape variety, vintage and residual sugar. This brings together similar wines into a single flight.

For reds, there are various winemaking styles, and without specific indications of a claret, fruity or oak-barrel aged wine, we usually sort the Pinot Noirs by their degree of alcohol — something that tends to leave the fullest-bodied wines at the end of the flight.

When it comes to Grands Crus, keeping the same sorting criteria would not work because each of the 51 Grand Cru AOC can give huge variations in style. Terroirs are classified into families, based on their geological origin. Since we often don’t have enough wines to create a flight for each Grand Cru, we group wines from similar terroir families.

For example, wines from granite soil Grand Crus (such as Schlossberg, Brand, Sommerberg) are tasted together, whereas wines from limestone dominated soils (Rosacker, Steinert) are grouped in a different flight. The wines are then further sorted by vintage and residual sugar, regardless of the grape variety used. DWWA staff carefully plan the flights following the competition’s protocols and ensure to bring the wines at the right temperature.

So, you taste Grand Cru wines from different grape varieties in the same flight?

It is easier than it sounds, and panel judges find it very interesting because we can find a specific style in all wines of a flight, be it made of Riesling, Pinot Gris or Gewürztraminer.

This approach has allowed the panel to test great wines over the years, from terroirs that usually produced more closed wines when young — like Grand Cru Kirchberg de Ribeauvillé. These wines can easily be overshadowed by sandstone or granite wines, which show more intense and clear aromas in their youth.

How easy is it to move from one flight to another throughout the day?

On top of organising the flights, we have created a daily routine that is very effective for our palates. We start the day with a Crémant d’Alsace flight, then move on to AOC Alsace wines and end the morning with a flight of red.

The lunch break allows us to reset the palate, especially since the last reds of the flight are sometimes quite tannic!

In the afternoon we usually focus on the Grand Cru wines and we end the day with either sweeter AOC Alsace wine flights such as sweet Gewürztraminers, or a flight of Vendange Tardive (Late Harvest) or Sélection de Grains Nobles. Sugar can be quite damaging on the teeth, so it is a good way to save the day.

Which wines can expect Gold medals or higher?

Some people think great Alsace wines are only dry Rieslings, yet we have, over the past years, granted top scores in all categories.

When judges hesitate between Silver and Gold we always have discussions in the panel, but other times the review looks like a strike with every judge giving a Gold.

These wines are distinctive; they catch your attention. Some will be promoted to Platinum and we are proud that they’ll compete with wines from other regions and countries. It can be a Grand Cru Riesling, but we have also seen very impressive Pinot Noirs, Crémant d’Alsace and several wines from the Alsace Appellation.

What advice would you give to producers questioning which wines to enter?

If you are aiming for a Gold, your wine must be balanced and pure. It must show character, regardless of its sugar or acidity levels. Don’t send your sweetest or driest wines, choose the wines that show balance, wines that speak for themselves.

When you have these wines tasted or drunk around you, look for the glasses that empty first, not the praise you receive!

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Pinot Noir has been known in Alsace since the Middle Ages. It once flourished, but war and conflict reduced it to just 2% of regional production by 1969.

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores for 18 Alsace Pinot Noir wines to try

By the 1990s, it was often boring, lacking the spicy, earthy nuance and beguiling, perfume-like cherry characters encountered in great Burgundy, the world standard. Instead I remember thin, weedy reds served in pitchers at local restaurants. Aside from a handful of producers, Pinot Noir was not taken seriously, and the official Alsace Grand Cru appellation of 1975 (revised in 1983) excluded Pinot Noir.

Much has changed in recent years, capped by the announcement in 2022 by the French national appellation authority INAO that two grand cru terroirs – Hengst and Kirchberg de Barr – could henceforth include Pinot Noir as a grand cru variety, starting with the 2022 vintage.

The clay-limestone soils of these two grands crus are successful for Pinot Noir, many say. There is also talk of other grand cru terroirs being worthy of Pinot Noir in the future, including the limestone, clay and iron-rich soils of Grand Cru Vorbourg.

Find your style

Aside from terroir, production methods have changed to improve quality. ‘We make Pinot Noir differently than 20 years ago,’ says Marc Beyer, 13th generation of the Léon Beyer estate in Eguisheim. ‘With longer macerations and reduced yields, we are focusing on making better reds,’ he says.

A blind tasting held in October 2023 of 27 Alsace Pinot Noir wines from the 2019 vintage proves that Alsace Pinot Noir can be a delicious, aromatically driven wine that varies in style from delicate and elegant, which I prefer, to more structured and powerful examples which require cellaring.

The tasting included four quality ‘pirates’, which performed expectedly well: Eyrie Vineyards, Sisters Vineyard Pinot Noir from Dundee Hills in Oregon (priced about £47 retail); Villa Maria, Single Vineyard Taylors Pass Pinot Noir from Marlborough, New Zealand (£30-£34); Weingut Knipser, Kirschgarten Spätburgunder Grosses Gewächs from Pfalz, Germany (£55-£65); and Domaine Marc Roy, Gevrey-Chambertin Vieilles Vignes from Burgundy’s Côte de Nuits, France (about £80 for recent vintages). While some of the Alsace Pinot Noirs lacked comparative excitement to make the cut, others showed that Alsace Pinot Noir can not only hold its own, but even outperform these other highly reputed regions.

The 2019 vintage exhibits a more classical style in Alsace, in the modern context: not as hot as 2022 or 2018, but a warm vintage. 2019 is also considered very good in Burgundy, Germany, New Zealand and Oregon, so the horizontal tasting of that vintage was equitable.

Alsace Pinot Noir: 18 to try

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Following two days of blind tasting in Colmar earlier this year, 13 wines scored 95 points or more and 40 wines scored 92-94 points, with both the 2021 and 2020 vintages faring well.

Tasting notes for the top 60 wines from both vintages focus on Grand Cru Riesling, as well as Grand Cru Muscat, Pinot Gris and Gewurztraminer.

Scroll down to see the top 30 Alsace Grand Cru wines from 2020 and 2021

51 grands crus

Across the 15,500ha of total vineyard area in Alsace, there are 51 designated grands crus, yet very few of these are well-known to consumers. Though most consumers do not understand Burgundy or Bordeaux classifications in great detail, these two regions have a longer historical record and formidable brand identities. Alsace on the other hand did not introduce its modern classification until 1975, which doubled in size 1983 with its first 25 grand cru classifications.

Though not covered in this report, over 25% of all Alsace wine produced is traditional method sparkling, known as Crémant. Some of it amounts to mediocre mass-market fizz, but some talented producers are making superb bubbles that can rival Champagne. Some excellent examples to try include Mélanie Pfister’s Breit Extra Brut, Albert Mann’s Extra Brut and Domaine Muré’s Grand Millésime.

See all the Alsace vintage report tasting notes and scores here

2021: a classic vintage

2021 was a ‘difficult vintage,’ says Gilles Haeffelin, sommelier at Au Bon-Coin in Wintzenheim, with the lowest yields since the 1950s because of excessive rain and corresponding rot risk. Despite these difficulties, of 89 Rieslings tasted for this report many 2021s exuded exciting wet stone and citrus fruit characters and tangy acidity.

Lovers of freshness and elegance will likely prefer the 2021 vintage for more noticeable acidity and verve. Philippe Blanck of Domaine Paul Blanck in Kaysersberg says: ‘I will remember 2021 for its acidity and dry extract, an atypical vintage in the context of global warming, but also for its fine texture.’

Jérôme Mader of Domaine Jean-Luc Mader in Hunawihr says: ‘2021 is a classic vintage that we may not ever again make, as climate change takes us in a different direction. It reminds us of Alsace wines made 20 years ago.’

2020: a solar vintage

Mélanie Pfister, of her eponymous domaine in Dahlenheim, northern Alsace, says that 2020 proved to be a more typical, global warming era style, with higher alcohol levels than in 2021: ‘2020 is ripe, full-bodied, deep and with plenty of dry extract,’ she says.

Mader agrees: ‘2020 is more powerful and muscular, but it sometimes lacks the elegance and balance of 2021,’ which he finds ‘very aristocratic in its manifestation of wet stone minerality.’

Cooler soils like clay were better suited to 2020, while warmer granite soils suited 2021 better, says Guillaume Mochel of Domaine Frédéric Mochel in Traenheim.

Mader stresses that grand cru wines are generally from sunnier terroirs where the grapes are meant to ‘ripen perfectly,’ so in solar years like 2020, Pinot Gris and Gewurztraminer from grands crus can be ‘very powerful’ wines, ‘where the richness can sometimes be excessive.’ By contrast, ‘these excesses are not found in the 2021 vintage, where the balance is more harmonious and finer,’ he says.

A question of style

Olivier Humbrecht MW of Domaine Zind-Humbrecht finds entry-level wines (not including grands crus or specified lieux-dits) ‘more successful’ in 2021. While agreeing with the solar versus classic description, he stresses that grand cru terroirs for Riesling performed equally well while reflecting stylistic differences. For Pinot Gris and dry Gewurztraminer, he prefers the verve of the 2021 vintage, while favouring 2020 for sweeter, late-harvest Gewurztraminer.

Humbrecht cautions against making too strong a contrast between the two vintages. While 2021 had heavy rains between April and July, a very dry period in August through to the end of the harvest meant that poorly worked plots ‘actually showed signs of water stress,’ he says. And while 2020 was indeed much warmer, he explains that two big rains in August – 80mm at the beginning, 40mm in mid-August – helped retain freshness, so that the grands crus experienced ‘no water stress in 2020.’

Although 2021 was difficult for yields, it proved ‘in fact much simpler’ to vinify than 2020, Humbrecht says. ‘Thanks to spring rains, the grapes and musts were loaded with assimilable nitrogen [important for successful fermentations], which allowed the wines to all ferment very easily until they were dry – some took a while, but went the whole way without problems,’ he explains. ‘As a result, the 2021s are quite reductive, but we have not changed the ageing – still 18 months on total lees because we thought that racking the wines earlier would have been harmful.’

Fermentations in 2020 on the other hand were ‘languorous,’ and ‘not just because potential alcohols were 0.5% higher than 2021,’ explains Humbrecht.

Which grands crus fared the best?

The grands crus with the highest-scoring wines were:

Hengst

Kaefferkopf

Kastelberg

Rangen de Thann

Rosacker

Schlossberg

Sommerberg

Zinnkoepflé

Contrasting styles, excellent quality

Tasting both vintages, I experienced more verve and liveliness from the 2021 vintage on a general level. But many 2020s are excellent, with enough acidity and vivacity to balance warmer, riper fruit.

The blind tasting once again proves that Alsace produces exciting white wines, but often the region does not get the attention it deserves. High-scoring producers from this tasting – such as Domanine Weinbach or Domaine Zind-Humbrecht – sell well internationally, but the tasting has also brought lesser-known producers to the fore. From sensational dry Rieslings to nuanced and spicy Gewurztraminers, by way of bold Pinot Gris and refreshing Muscats, most are also inexpensive.

Alsace’s consumer challenges

Alsace still faces a number of consumer challenges. Does Alsace Pinot Gris resemble Italian Pinot Grigio? How are grape varieties like Gewurztraminer, or grands crus like Schlossberg or Altenberg de Bergbieten, pronounced? Will the wine be sweet because it’s in a long, fluted bottle?

While sales of Alsatian wines are solid – the US and the UK are among the top 10 countries for Alsace wines sold by volume and value, according to recent CIVA statistics – they could improve.

‘Even in 2023, there is a question of which grand cru is easier to pronounce for foreign markets,’ says Foulques Aulagnon, export marketing manager at the CIVA (Conseil Interprofessionnel des Vins d’Alsace).

As it turns out, Alsace Pinot Gris is ‘absolutely nothing like Italian Pinot Grigio, and buyers still are confounded by the residual sugar levels in Alsatian wine, often too sweet for palates accustomed to dry whites,’ says Washington DC based sommelier Maria Denton.

Despite a recent change in regulations stating that all non-late harvest Alsace Riesling must be dry, as well as an introduction of a dryness scale on the back label, making this information even clearer on the label could help.

Tasting notes and scores for the top 30 Alsace Grand Cru wines from 2020 and 2021:

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Panos Kakaviatos reviews the latest-release Alsace Grand Cru wines, from the 2021 and 2020 vintages.

Here we present a quick and easy way to see tasting notes and scores for the 60 top-scoring wines.

Wines are listed in score order.

See also

Rhône 2021 En Primeur: full vintage report and top-scoring wines

Other score tables:

Southern Rhône 2021 score table

Northern Rhône 2021 score table

Top Rhône 2021 whites score table

Top Rhône 2021 reds score table

Big news coming out of Alsace! From the 2022 vintage, two of its 51 grands crus will be authorised to label their Pinot Noir red wines as grand cru, in addition to the existing white wines permitted. This is a significant development in a region which, since 1975, has only awarded grand cru status to its white wines made from Riesling, Gewurztraminer, Muscat, Pinot Gris and Sylvaner (the last recently added).

The process of approving this status, which culminated in a decree of May last year, has had a long gestation. Originally mooted in 2000, the application was only filed by the AVA (Alsace Viticultural Association) in 2016 and it wasn’t until 2019 that the INAO (Institut National des Appellations d’Origine) accepted the submission, and it took a further three years for the two specific sites to be named and approved.

The audition

The precise identity of the submissions has been kept secret, but it is thought that there were only three grand cru terroirs in the final running: Kirchberg de Barr in the Bas-Rhin village of Barr, Hengst in the Haut-Rhin village of Wintzenheim, and Vorbourg in the villages of Rouffach and Westhalten.

Anecdotally it is thought that Vorbourg, despite a long history of growing Pinot Noir, did not meet the consistency criteria in the final blind tasting, itself one of the key components of the INAO’s final decision. Kirchberg de Barr and Hengst were both triumphant.

As of the 2021 harvest, the grands crus of Alsace in total represent 5.2% of the vineyard area and produce only 3.25% of the region’s wine. Pinot Noir is increasingly fashionable in the region, however, and now accounts for 11.2% of the vines and 10.3% of the wine production.

Given that the area dedicated to Pinot Noir in both Hengst and Kirchberg de Barr is small, within already relatively small grands crus, there is clearly a lot more potential for further promotions beyond these two areas.

While the grand cru submission process is not disclosed, it can be safely assumed that other sites in addition to Vorbourg will be putting in an application in the coming years.

The successful terroirs

Hengst and Kirchberg de Barr share similar soils dominated by marl and limestone (there is a little more sandstone in Hengst), relatively steep aspects (Hengst rises from 270m to 360m over just 53ha, for example) and south and south-easterly exposures.

Both possess a history of growing Pinot Noir which stretches back to the monasteries of the 15th century and even beyond that. Both are well ventilated and both benefit from the fact that Alsace has the lowest rainfall in Europe.

Hengst actually means ‘stallion’, which may give some idea of the power of its Pinot Noirs. The red wines in both villages are wonderfully textured, combining structure and finesse in a fashion which may surprise some.

Both terroirs also have long-established Pinot Noir producers including Boeckel and Domaine Hering in Kirchberg de Barr, and Domaine Saint-Rémy, Albert Mann and Domaine Barmès-Buecher in Hengst.

Sophie Barmès at Domaine Barmès-Beucher is a passionate advocate of Pinot Noir. ‘The Grand Cru Hengst is synonymous with constancy and there are many vines, including ours, which are over 60 years old,’ she says. ‘For several decades, a handful of winemakers have had faith in this terroir which gives birth to great red wines that are powerful, structured and complex.’

It is hard to disagree with this. Strict stipulations which encompass planting densities, clones and yields (the maximum yield of 40hl/ha is lower than the 50hl/ha for the whites in the same villages, for example), all underline seriousness of intent.

This is an important development in the history of Alsace, its relatively modest start born out of a desire to have secure foundations in place, upon which to build Pinot Noir’s standing and reputation in the region.

Six grand cru-worthy Alsace Pinot Noirs:

The six wines below are from the Hengst and Kirchberg de Barr Grand Cru vineyard areas, from vintages that pre-date the 2022 regulations, and were tasted by Natalie Earl.

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André Hugel was an 11th generation member of Famille Hugel, one of the region’s most influential and highly-regarded wine families.

The Hugel family settled in the town of Riquewihr, located in the heart of Alsace, all the way back in 1639.

André ran Famille Hugel along with his brothers, Jean and Georges, as it developed into one of the world’s top producers.

It owns 30 hectares (ha) of prime plots in the Haut-Rhin area, half of which are classified as Grand Cru, and it buys grapes from a further 100ha of vineyards cultivated by partner growers.

Famille Hugel now produces around 100,000 cases per year, and roughly 90% are exported to more than 100 countries, making Hugel wines synonymous with Alsace around the world.

André joined the family business at a young age after training in Beaune and Geisenheim. He was known as a passionate champion of two of the estate’s most iconic wines: Grossi Laüe – which means ‘best vineyards’ in Alsatian dialect – and Schoelhammer.

He served as president of the Riquewihr Archaeological Society from 1978 onwards, as well as president of Museum of Alsace Wines and Vineyards for more than 40 years.

André was also appointed Grand Master of the Confrérie St-Etienne wine guild in 1985, and he served as deputy mayor of Riquewihr from 1989 to 1995, and municipal councillor from 1995 to 2001.

He was a keen historian, with an encyclopaedic knowledge of the region. His speciality was naturally winegrowing, but his research into Alsatians conscripted against their will into the German army in World War II also featured in several publications.

‘He leaves us with the memory of an incredibly full life, unfailing devotion to the family history and unlimited tenderness towards his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren,’ said the family in a statement.

‘Spending a few, lazy hours in the picturesque streets of Riquewihr with André Hugel, and pushing open the doors of our centuries-old cellars was like setting out on an exploration of the extraordinary terroirs of Alsace and the history of our wonderful region.’

André continued working until his last days, helping to set the family business on a prosperous path long into the future.

His son Etienne, a respected figure in the region and the public face of the winery, passed away in 2016. His other two sons, Jean-Philippe and Marc, continue to oversee operations, while the 13th generation is also heavily involved.

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The cultural history of Strasbourg – one of France’s largest cities, and the capital of Alsace – is reflected in its mix of architectural styles. Medieval timber-framed dwellings in the touristy ‘Petite France’ quarter denote a thousand-year link to the Germanic Holy Roman Empire, as does the Strasbourg cathedral: built between 1015 and 1439, it is considered an exceptional example of Gothic architecture. After the Thirty Years War, Louis XIV made Alsace part of the French kingdom, only for it to later change hands twice with Germany in the 19th and 20th centuries, which explains some impressive Wilhelmine buildings at Place de la République.

Such architectural variety matches a hodge-podge of the region’s vineyard soils: from sandstone and marl to limestone and granite. Located in northeastern France, Alsace is one of France’s driest and sunniest wine regions; its cool summer nights and warm days permit the grapes to ripen evenly.

Alsace wine: the facts

Area planted About 15,600ha

Appellation AP officially instituted in 1962; AP Alsace accounts for about 70% of production

Alsace Grand Cru AP Introduced in 1975, progressively expanding to 51 sites classified as such, accounting for about 5% of total production

Authorised grand cru grapes Gewurztraminer, Muscat, Pinot Gris and Riesling, but blends are allowed in Altenberg de Bergheim and Kaefferkopf, and Sylvaner is permitted only in Zotzenberg

Crémant d’Alsace Sparkling made by the traditional method, accounts for about 25% of production

Vendanges Tardives On wine bottles designates sweet wines made from grapes picked when overripe

Sub-regions Two: the southern Haut-Rhin, which counts 37 grands crus, and the northern Bas-Rhin with 14

Vineyard visits

A 20-minute drive from Strasbourg, and you’re in wine country. Many of the quality producers are family-owned wineries, opening doors for wine tastings in their home estates, but be sure to schedule an appointment beforehand.

Old wooden casks form part of the scenery at Domaine Frédéric Mochel in the village of Traenheim, west of Strasbourg, where 14 generations of the family have lived since 1669. In my most recent visit this year, I met New York importer Bradley Cohen, who fell in love with the wines during a Zoom tasting in 2021. Indeed, top Alsace restaurants feature Domaine Frédéric Mochel wines, and do not miss the bold and elegant dry Altenberg de Bergbieten Grand Cru Riesling. An expansive tasting room includes comfortable seating where the Mochel family offers bread and cheese to go with the wines.

A five-minute drive east from there, Mélanie Pfister of the eponymous estate in Dahlenheim counts among the most talented Alsace winemakers. The eighth generation of her family to run the estate, she crafts dry wines – from superb sparklers to pristine Pinot Gris – which also are featured in top Alsace restaurants. Try her marvellous Engelberg Grand Cru Riesling in the tasting room that once was the 18th-century vinification cellar. If the weather is sunny, find time for a 20-minute walk from town to the 300m-high south-facing Engelberg vineyard, where you not only see vines on the limestone/clay terroir, but also appreciate a great view of Strasbourg’s cathedral.

Heading south

An hour’s drive from Dahlenheim is the southern Alsace village of Hunawihr. It was thanks to Romain Iltis, sommelier at two-star Michelin Villa René Lalique (see below), that I discovered Domaine Mader’s Rosacker Grand Cru Riesling: the wine was so clean, crisp and pure that a week later I visited the estate, where co-owner Jérôme Mader emphasises wet stone minerality. Every single wine that I tried at the family winery was delicious, but Rosacker has the coolest limestone terroir in Alsace: favourable for climate change, Mader explained.

Drive another 15 minutes further south to the village of Niedermorschwihr to visit one of the most celebrated estates in Alsace these days. At Domaine Albert Boxler (+33 [0]3 89 27 11 32), you cannot help but admire the adjacent – and steep (45°) – granite Sommerberg vineyard. Oriented directly south, and rising nearly 400m in altitude, it is the source of splendid Rieslings that you can taste at the estate. It is hard to beat the beautiful aromatic minerality and subtle citrus notes encountered in these wines. Try the old-vine Sylvaner and the excellent crémant, too.

No visit to vintners in Alsace would be complete without seeing Famille Hugel in Riquewihr, a beautiful medieval town along the Alsace Wine Route. Founded in 1639, the estate is still 100% family owned and is now managed by its 12th consecutive generation. A wide range of wines, including Alsace Grand Cru, are sold worldwide: widely recognised for their high quality. Open every day of the year, the cosy tasting room awaits you at the foot of cobbled streets near wood-timbered shops in the village centre. Surrounding vineyard slopes accentuate the charm of the setting. Inside, don’t miss a tour of the cellars, full of large oak barrels dating back to the 18th century. Indeed, the ‘S. Caterine’ cask from 1715 has been named the world’s oldest working cask by the Guinness World Records, according to the estate.

And if you missed any wineries in your tour, back in Strasbourg L’Alsace à Boire is dedicated to Alsace wine, although I am surprised that it took so long for the region’s capital to have such a wine bar (it opened in 2021). But now locals and tourists can discover most Alsace Grand Cru appellations without having to leave Strasbourg. There are some excellent sparkling wines, too – industrial versions of Alsace crémant can be downright average, but many producers excel. Just ask the bartender.

(Long) Weekend options from Strasbourg

After marvelling at its beautiful interior, climb the 330 steps up the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Strasbourg, the sixth-tallest church in the world.

Near European institution buildings – Strasbourg is headquarters for the Council of Europe and hosts monthly EU Parliament sessions – visit the Parc de l’Orangerie, the city’s oldest park, with sprawling floral grounds surrounding the Pavillon Joséphine, a fine example of early 19th-century neo-classical architecture. Visit the mini zoo, picnic near the lake and waterfall or just take a relaxing walk – or even invigorating jog.

Wine bar urge? Strasbourg’s Ill Vino on a barge offers a modern, fun ambience – the name refers to the Rhine tributary. Take a deep dive into Alsace wine at L’Alsace à Boire (see above).

Rent a car and visit wineries along the 170km-long picturesque Alsace Wine Route, but make sure you book any visits in advance.

Shop at Beauvillé, famous producer of luxurious tablecloths and household linens, located in Ribeauvillé, where you’ll also find celebrated wine producer Domaine Trimbach.

Your Alsace address book

Accommodation

Hôtel Cour du Corbeau, Strasbourg

Very close to the cathedral in a setting that dates back to the 16th century, this four- star hotel combines Middle Ages charm with modern amenities. Visiting friends give rave reviews.

Hôtel Léonor, Strasbourg

Opened last year, enjoy casually chic (and comfortable) rooms in what was a central police station in Strasbourg. The elegant façade is a historical monument. Dine at the hotel restaurant, managed by the team from the exceptional two-star Michelin La Fourchette des Ducs.

Les Haras, Strasbourg

Conveniently close to the Petite France quarter, it used to be the 18th-century National Stud Farm and Equestrian Academy, but now impresses with stylish rooms and gorgeous design. Dine at its brasserie, where I often have business lunches for quality and price.

Villa René Lalique, Wingen-sur-Moder

Worth the 45-minute drive northwest from Strasbourg: relax in sumptuous rooms fitted with Lalique crystal decor. Built by René Lalique in 1920, the house has been refurbished as a boutique hotel. Dine at the superb two-star Michelin restaurant, and don’t miss the Lalique museum!

Restaurants

La Fourchette des Ducs, Obernai

Originally built by Ettore Bugatti, founder of the eponymous car company, to receive customers in appropriate style, the gorgeous interior mirrors peerless cuisine and wine at this two-star Michelin restaurant, ideal for dinner after having trekked through southern Alsace wine country.

Le Cerf, Marlenheim

French newspaper Le Monde calls the traditional choucroute of this one-star Michelin restaurant the most successful in France, to which I can attest, as well as to its excellent wine list. A 20-minute drive west from Strasbourg, it is also convenient for its four-star hotel, with a small spa including sauna and hammam.

Les Plaisirs Gourmands, Schiltigheim

Pleasingly economically priced one-star Michelin in this Strasbourg suburb that’s known for its jazz concerts with international stars. €380 for a delicious six-course lunch for three, including two bottles of wine and tips.

Mademoiselle 10, Strasbourg

Casual ambience in the city centre, with a view of the Ill tributary, this is often a top choice for diplomatic lunches. Try the €45 lunch menu.

For more details of the Alsace dining scene, peruse Panos Kakavaitos’ guide to the region’s best bars and restaurants.

Shops & markets

Les Boutiques de l’Aubette features shops at Strasbourg’s Place Kléber in a splendid 18th-century building. Although bombed in the Franco-Prussian war and reconstructed several times since, a more definitive 2008 renovation has made it a Strasbourg shopping highlight, in contrast to the rather ugly Les Halles nearby…

La Petite France

Sometimes called mini-Venice, because the Ill tributary predominates, Strasbourg’s Petite France quarter is invaded by tourists. But it is well worth visiting for its medieval architecture, charming narrow paths, and restaurants, shops and boutiques, from Le Goût du Terroir cheese shop to the lovely Galerie Pascale Froessel. Snack on tarte flambée, washed down with Riesling – or Fischer beer.

Strasbourg Christmas market

The month-long festive event (Le Christkindelsmärik) starts in late November and features a magnificent Christmas tree and ubiquitous holiday decorations that never fail to enchant. Between sips of spicy hot mulled wine, take care to avoid tourist traps among the temporary wooden holiday kiosks that dot the city. If you like foie gras, buy the amazing Champagne and pepper foie gras at the stand in front of the gorgeous Maison Kammerzell in Place de la Cathédrale.

How to get there

Strasbourg is the nearest airport. From Paris, take the high-speed TGV train running daily to Strasbourg, with an average journey time of around two hours.

Alsace wines: the grapes

Riesling is king, but styles – and terroirs – vary. Either way, dry Riesling from quality producers matches any great dry white in the world.

Gewurztraminer is slightly on the sweeter side, with low acidity, at its best conveying exuberant lychee, rose and ginger aromas. Pairs well with strong cheese or spicy foods.

Pinot Gris tends to be, as the French say, entre deux chaises, as even ‘dry’ it often has sweetish overtones and usually a thicker texture than Riesling.

Sylvaner can be superb from older vines that lend depth to what more usually is light dry white.

Pinot Blanc tends to be soft and rather delicate – and is often underrated.

Muscat, when vinified dry, pairs well with white asparagus, or enjoyed on its own as an aperitif.

For reds, Lucas Alessandri of the Strasbourg Léonor hotel restaurant Mélanie Pfister praises Pinot Noir. I have been sceptical, but climate change seems to be ‘helping’. Never have I enjoyed such fine Alsace Pinot Noir as in recent years, but I would avoid the house reds at most locations. As Burgundy prices scrape ever higher skies, try Pinot Noir from estates such as Domaine Albert Mann and Mélanie Pfister, for example. I had a very good Domaine Boeckel, Oberpfoeller 2019 at Léonor that cost only €46 a bottle, restaurant price.

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Starting with the 2021 vintage, non-late harvest Alsace Riesling must be ‘dry’, as defined by EU regulations, according to a proposed decree agreed by a two-thirds majority of the Alsace Winegrowers’ Association (AVA).

Winemakers backed the plan at a vote in Colmar last week, although it requires approval from France’s appellation body, INAO.

The move comes in addition to the introduction of a standardised way of communicating sweetness levels on Alsace AOC still wines.

As per EU rules, a dry wine can contain a maximum of four grams per litre (g/l) of residual sugar, but the limit rises to 9g/l if total acidity – measured in g/l of tartaric acid – is not less than 2g/l lower than the sugar content.

AVA representative Raymond Lassablière explained that, from the 2021 vintage, Alsace Riesling may have a maximum of 9g/l residual sugar, but total acidity must be 7g/l. For 8g/l of residual sugar, total acidity cannot be lower than 6g/l, and so on.

Lassablière said the new rule is ‘very likely’ to be approved by French appellation officials, ‘because the INAO has long requested greater clarity for Alsace wines’.

The decree furthermore stipulates displaying the terms ‘dry’ (sec), ‘medium-dry’ (demi-sec), ‘medium-sweet’ (moelleux) and ‘sweet’ (doux) for all other white grapes of Alsace, whether Pinot Gris or Pinot Blanc, Gewurztraminer or Sylvaner.

This conforms with the new mandatory sweetness guide for bottles of AOC still wines, also based on EU definitions and announced by regional body Wines of Alsace. It applies from the 2021 harvest, the group said.

Winemakers must print the correct term or point to one of them on a specific sliding scale. ‘The information can be either on the front or back label, but it must be easy for consumers to read,’ Lassablière told Decanter.

The standardised scale is intended to help consumers sometimes confounded by residual sugar levels in Alsace wines, which can result in some ‘dry’ wines tasting sweeter than others.

Yet some winemakers find the additional dry Riesling proposal too constraining.

‘This is being more royalist than the king,’ said Mélanie Pfister of the eponymous Alsace estate, which is well known for bone-dry wines. ‘What about vintners who prefer making sweeter Riesling?’ she asked.

One such vintner is Pierre Gassmann, of Domaine Rolly Gassmann, which has long championed medium-dry and sweet Rieslings. ‘Indicating levels of sweetness is fine for Alsace, but why be so strict with Riesling?’ he asked. ‘What will we end up doing with sweet Rieslings? Declassify them?,’ he said.

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It is always reassuring to find flourishing examples of family continuity in French wine estates. At the famous Domaine Zind-Humbrecht in Alsace, Pierre-Emile Humbrecht is the latest to join the family business.

In preparation, he studied at the Changins School of Viticulture and Enology in Switzerland and then completed internships at wine estates, beginning with Thérèse Chappaz in that same country for 18 months, followed by a six-month period at Domaine Tissot in the Jura and then nearly eight months at Burgundy’s iconic estate, Domaine de la Romanée Conti.

Pierre-Emile is now working alongside his father Olivier, who has been in charge of the family enterprise since 1989.

Scroll down for tasting notes and scores of 12 Domaine Zind-Humbrecht whites from 2019

A union, and expansion

The Zind-Humbrecht estate is indeed a family affair. It was founded in 1959 following the marriage of Leonard Humbrecht to Geneviève Zind and the subsequent merger of the vineyard holdings and wine production of the two families, based respectively in Gueberschwihr and Wintzenheim.

As for the Humbrecht family, its wine-growing activities date back to the time of Sontag Humbrecht (1620-16820).

New wine production facilities were soon added in Wintzenheim for the newly established Zind-Humbrecht enterprise. Léonard was passionate about terroir and viticulture, and he quickly acquired a good number of quality vineyards located in different sites. In 1973, it was the lieu-dit of Herrenweg in Turckheim and Clos Häuserer lying at the foot of the Hengst Grand Cru vineyard in Wintzenheim. Then in 1977 came Clos Saint-Urbain lying within the Grand Cru Rangen de Thann vineyard overlooking the village of Thann. The following year the estate expanded further with Brand Grand Cru vines in Turckheim, then with Clos Jebsal, situated just below Brand Grand Cru. The Heimbourg vineyard in Turckheim was added in 1983, and then it was the turn of Clos Windsbuhl in the commune of Hunawihr in 1987.

So after beginning with just five hectares in the early 1960s, the Zind-Humbrecht vineyard holdings have expanded since the mid-1990s to include some 42ha.

Pioneer in the cellar

At the technical forefront of his time, Léonard was not just a highly respected winemaker but also a fervent defender and promoter of Alsace grands crus, serving as union president of the Syndicat de défense des Grands Crus d’Alsace for many years. He was also an innovator in the region, the first to install a temperature control and cooling system for fermentation in oak casks as early as 1981. He acquired in Switzerland one of the very first Bucher pneumatic presses in 1986 and thus was able to start using the method of whole bunch pressing, which resulted in a higher quality juice.

His son Olivier came on board in 1989. An agricultural engineer and the very first Master of Wine of French origin, Olivier Humbrecht is also an excellent and eclectic taster. He is also just as demanding as his father. It was Olivier and his wife Margareth who were responsible for the addition of a new winery constructed on the site of the Herrenweg vineyard in 1992.

Olivier was also behind the move to biodynamic farming in 1998, as he saw it as a means to ‘improve the match between the grape variety and the terroir’, which is so essential in Alsace.

Tasting the 2019 vintage

Giving context to this horizontal tasting of a dozen wines from 2019, Olivier Humbrecht provided some background on the vintage as experienced at his family estate: ‘2019 was quite classic, with flowering in mid-June. The harvest took place from 10 September to 1 October. It was very hot in July and early August, and we had some storms, but they were not violent. There was no concern about drought. We had some mildew, but it was never widespread. The wines are characterised by good acidity.’

Guide to the vineyards that make up the Domaine Zind-Humbrecht estate

Clos Windsbuhl in the commune of Hunawihr 

Located about 15km from Colmar, it faces south and south-east from a relatively high altitude for Alsace, 350 metres. It has a distinctive soil structure including what is called muschelkalk, in fact, a limestone substratum that is also rich in clay. In some spots, there are outcrops of exposed bedrock. This combination of terrain elements results in powerful, aromatic wines. Zind-Humbrecht has nearly 5.5ha here, planted with Gewurztraminer, Riesling, Chardonnay and Auxerrois.

Heimbourg vineyard in Turckheim

It has proximity to both the Brand Grand Cru vineyard and Clos Jebsal, and although small, one part faces west while another looks southward on a steep slope with a gradient of 50%. The notable feature of the soil structure here is a clay-limestone substratum. Currently planted are 1.6ha of Pinot Gris, 1ha of Gewurztraminer, 1.15ha of Riesling and, since 1997, 0.3ha of Pinot Noir. The wines tend to be opulent and quite spicy.

Clos Jebsal in Turckheim

Clos Jebsal is situated on a geological fault on which is found a cool soil type named Keuper in reference to the Upper Triassic period, consisting mainly of gray limestone marl rich in clay and gypsum. Every harvest since 1989 has produced sweet wine, either of a late harvest’ type or a ‘sélection de grains nobles (SGN)’ from grapes richly endowed with noble rot.

Brand Grand Cru in Turckheim

The Brand Grand Cru vineyard lies on a granitic substratum composed of what is known as Turckheim granite, but there is also some black mica in the soil. Zind-Humbrecht has 2.4ha of Riesling planted here, producing elegant wines with good acidity that stand out for their floral scents.

Herrenweg lieu-dit in Turckheim

This is a sun-drenched site on well-drained soil and a substratum composed of a mix including clay, silt, sand, and gravel. The wines produced from here tend to be quite aromatic with good acidity but are best enjoyed when young.

Rotenberg vineyard in Wintzenheim

This sits on the top of the hill on which the Hengst Grand Cru vineyard lies. The soil is composed of limestone and marl. The estate cultivates 1.7ha with 0.5ha planted to Pinot Blanc and 1.2ha to Pinot Gris. The wines are delicate and fine-boned and yet have great ageing potential.

Hengst Grand Cru in Wintzenheim

This is a south-east facing vineyard on a steep slope composed of limestone and marl soil along with some granite, sandstone, and siliceous pebbles. Zind-Humbrecht has only planted Gewurztraminer on this site, producing perfectly balanced wines with the capacity to stay the distance.

Clos Haüserer in Wintzenheim

It is located at the foot of the Hengst Grand Cru vineyard in Wintzenheim, and the subsoil is identical while the topsoil is a bit heavier. Zind-Humbrecht has only planted Riesling here and the resulting wines are intense and complex.

Goldert Grand Cru in Gueberschwihr

This vineyard has a rare and distinctive terroir for Alsace, one having a substratum composed of marine oolithic limestone. The topsoil has some clay and sandstone on the lower slopes. The soil is deep, rich, and fertile. In addition to vines of Gewurztraminer, Zind-Humbrecht has two plots of Muscat grapes.

Clos Saint-Urbain, Rangen de Thann Grand Cru in the village of Thann

Clos Saint-Urbain lies within the world-famous Grand Cru Rangen de Thann vineyard. The soil type is unique in the region, composed mainly of volcanic rocks and sedimentary sandstones. Zind-Humbrecht has planted on this late-ripening site Riesling, Gewurztraminer and Pinot Blanc, producing wines that are infused with that je ne sais quoi that some call minerality, and complicated by smoky, flinty tones.

Domaine Zind-Humbrecht horizontal tasting: a dozen releases from 2019

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With its long lunches and decadent dinners, Christmas is undoubtedly a time for indulgence. And few bottles scream ‘indulgent’ like a sweet wine.

Whether it’s a golden Sauternes from Bordeaux or a Hungarian Tokaji to accompany dessert, or a richer Italian appassimento or New World sticky to sip by the fireside, sweet wines are part of many families’ Christmas routines. Yet those traditional niches are just the tip of this sugary iceberg.

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores for Peter Ranscombe’s best sweet wines from around the world

Sweeter Champagnes not only make fine food matches but also provide a warming aperitif to kick off an evening, while the vibrant red hues of a sparkling Shiraz can become a real talking point to get a party started. Once the kids are tucked up in bed, a sweet red can be the ideal accompaniment when raiding that favourite chocolate selection box.

In Europe, wines stop being ‘dry’ if they contain more than four grams of residual sugar in each litre of liquid – a measure of the sweetness left over after sugars in the grapes’ juice are fermented into alcohol.

By the time that residual sugar reaches 45g/L, wines are classed as sweet. Other factors play tricks with our tastebuds though: high acidity masks sweetness, while the palate also perceives alcohol itself as sweet.

Finish with a flourish

Many popular supermarket red table wines – especially from warm, sunny regions like Australia, California and Italy – also contain high residual sugar, some bordering on 20g/L, which may appeal to generations raised on sugary soft drinks. Yet the world’s finest sweet wines have healthy levels of acidity that stop them becoming cloying.

Their sweetness comes from removing water, whether it’s by harvesting grapes later so they raisin on the vine or freeze during winter, for ice wine, or by laying them on mats to dry in the sun for appassimento. The backbone of many styles is noble rot, or Botrytis cinerea. This airborne fungus causes punctures in grapes’ skin so that the water within evaporates, and it’s this that creates famous wines such as Sauternes and Tokaji.

Winemaking regions throughout the world enjoy their sweet wines in different settings at Christmas.

In Bordeaux, Sauternes accompanies festive foie gras or blue and soft cheeses – in both cases, that combination of sweet and salty hits the spot.

Germans opt for an eiswein to serve with their ripe blue cheese, while also enjoying spätlese or auslese Gewürztraminer with gingerbread or Christmas cinnamon biscuits. Their fresher fruit desserts call for spätlese or auslese Riesling.

Christmas may fall during the southern hemisphere’s summer, but that doesn’t stop New World wine regions from breaking out celebratory stickies.

In Australia, lighter Moscato d’Asti pairs with pavlova, while fruitier desserts demand a cane cut-style Semillon or Riesling [where bunches are left hanging on branches that have been detached from the vine until the fruit has become dried]. Botrytised Semillon appeals to traditionalists opting for heavier Christmas pudding.

South Africans choose botrytised sweet wines to serve chilled or over ice alongside crème brûlée, ice cream or panna cotta, while Chileans love late-harvest wines after family lunches or with chocolates. If pumpkin pie is served at Thanksgiving or at Christmas, then Californians reach for an Orange Muscat, or a late-harvest Zinfandel if chocolate or fruitcake is on the menu.

Peter Ranscombe’s best sweet wines from around the world

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Rebecca Palmer, Marcel Orford-Williams and Eric Zwiebel MS tasted 77 wines with 1 Exceptional, 4 Outstanding and 34 Highly Recommended.

Entry criteria: producers and UK agents were invited to submit their dry grand cru Riesling wines from the latest vintage, with availability in the UK and US, and a maximum of three wines per producer and one wine per grand cru site

Alsace Riesling panel tasting scores

77 wines tasted

Exceptional 1

Outstanding 4

Highly recommended 34

Recommended 32

Commended 2

Fair 2

Poor 1

Faulty 1

Riesling is not merely the ‘the King among grape varieties’. It is also the terroir wine par excellence. Alsace has a vast mosaic of sites, each with its unique combination of aspect, altitude and soils. And this tasting demonstrated the extraordinary diversity, and quality, of Riesling in Alsace, from legendary estates as well as lesser-known names.

It also provided a fascinating test-case of Alsace’s classification system as it stands today.

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores for the top Alsace Riesling wines

The tasting featured 33 of Alsace’s 55 designated grands crus, including the largest, Schlossberg (80.3ha), which fielded several stellar wines, and the smallest, Kanzlerberg (3.23ha), whose single contender was one of the stars of the entire tasting.

Arguably France’s most complex region from a terroir perspective, navigating Alsace’s wines is not straightforward. Spanning 95km from north to south, its vineyards comprise countless different slopes and aspects with a mind-boggling range of soils, from Jurassic limestones and marls to Devonian slates and metamorphic schist; granites, greywackes and gneiss.

This breadth and complexity was why a ranking system was so desperately needed. Consumers would otherwise struggle to make sense of such vastness and diversity.

Unlike other major French wine regions, Alsace only implemented a classification system in 1983. Perhaps unsurprisingly it was immediately challenged and/or vilified.

Questions were raised about the inclusion, or exclusion, of certain sites. Criticisms were made about a lack of rigour in production regulations. Some argued it was ‘not fit for purpose’, criticising it for only acknowledging ‘grands crus’ and offering no other refinements.

Arguably Alsace would have been better served by a multi-tiered approach such as in the Burgundian model, with village, premier cru and grand cru sites bringing more nuance.

However, revisions have since been made and the Alsace grand cru classification is starting to provide one set of signposts for consumers to select wines with more confidence.

See tasting notes and scores for all of the Alsace Riesling wines tasted

As Marcel Orford-Williams commented: ‘This tasting proved the grand cru appellation is worth seeking out. Riesling has the most remarkable ability to reflect terroir and it was good to see this on the day, with outstanding examples coming from much of the geological spectrum that exists in Alsace.’

Another signpost that many consumers use is, of course, vintage. And again this tasting provided meaningful indicators. There were six vintages represented within the line-up: 2019 (28 wines), 2018 (14) and 2017 (24) are all viewed as great vintages, and these higher scoring wines all embodied the distinctive personalities of each vintage.

The 2019s typically displayed a combination of perfume and richness offset by thrilling acidities; the result of the hot, dry year where everything was concentrated, both the fruit and the acids; the wines have a delicious energy.

The 2018s were expressive, fragrant and accessible, acidities perhaps a little softer from this warm, generous vintage. By contrast, 2017 was a low-yielding vintage, due to the effects of a late spring frost, compounded by the hot summer. The resulting wines are complex and concentrated, balanced by refreshing acids.

The top-scoring wine hails from the stellar 2015 vintage, held by many to be the best in Alsace since the legendary 1990.

Finally, a note on viticulture: of the 39 wines that scored 90 or above in this tasting, 23 were certified organic, biodynamic or both. Yet another reason to seek these wines out.

Top-scoring wines from the Alsace Riesling tasting

The judges

Rebecca Palmer is associate director and buyer for London-based merchant Corney & Barrow, heading up a team that covers all world regions except Bordeaux. A DWWA judge, she previously worked at Bibendum and for Laithwaites as a buyer.

Marcel Orford-Williams is the DWWA Regional Chair for Alsace. Having joined The Wine Society’s buying department in 1986, he is currently buyer for its Rhône, southern and regional French wines as well as Germany.

Eric Zwiebel MS is executive head sommelier at Summer Lodge Hotel in Dorset and for the Red Carnation hotel group. Born in Alsace, he moved to London and achieved his Master Sommelier qualification in 2001, and was named Best Sommelier in the UK in 2004.

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Inside the Decanter magazine November 2021 issue

SPECIAL AWARDS

• Decanter Hall of Fame 2021: Penfolds chief winemaker Peter Gago receives Decanter’s top honour, joining a list of 38 standard-setting wine trade alumni.
• Rising Star Award 2021: Consultant and professor Dr Axel Marchal, from the University of Bordeaux’s Institute of Vine & Wine (ISVV), is the first to receive this new award.
• Decanter Retailer Awards 2021: Our 35 of the best – UK wine retailers going that extra mile in what they do.

FEATURES

• Oz Clarke: The New World wines that made me One of the UK’s foremost wine writers tells it all from the start.
• Affordable Burgundy: See 30 top buys with prices up to £25-a-bottle, from delicious whites and to great reds – all selected by Andy Howard MW.
• Regional profile: Chianti Rùfina – Italy expert Monty Waldin brings you an insider guide to Tuscany’s ‘other’ quality region for top Sangiovese reds.

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SPIRITS

• Distilled: Spirits insights and cocktail recipes – plus five superb XO Cognacs.
• Tahona tequilas: Laura Foster on the producers returning to tradition.

GOOD LIVING

• A perfect pairing: Roasted radicchio with beans calls for a soulful wine.
• Travel guide: Hong Kong for wine lovers and the best wine venues to try, by Jeannie Cho Lee MW.

LEARNING

• Wine wisdom: Expert tips to help you explore the fascinating world of wine.

BUYING GUIDE

• Editor’s picks: In our new regular section, Decanter staff highlight some of their favourite recent discoveries.
• Panel tasting: IGT Tuscan reds – Quality and balance on display from several vintages, with an impressive six Outstanding and 52 Highly Recommended wines out of 74 tasted.
• Panel tasting: Alsace grand cru Riesling – A rare line-up that showed why terroir really does count. See which of the 77 dry whites tasted got an Exceptional rating, plus find four Outstanding wines and plenty of other high scores.
• Expert’s Choice: Hungarian reds to discover – Caroline Gilby MW picks 18 reds full of regional character and flavour.
• Weekday wines: 25 top picks under £20, chosen by the Decanter team
• Weekend wines: Seven top buys price from £20 to £50.

COLLECTORS

• Marketwatch investment news: What’s making waves, and new releases to watch.
• Marketwatch spotlight on Burgundy: Prices for top wines are back on the rise.  

REGULARS

• Meet the experts: Decanter’s authors.
• Uncorked: News, views and more.
• Your letters
• Andrew Jefford’s column: Why a spark of imagination goes a long way
• Guest column with Peter Richards MW – The wine trade is seizing the day, and it’s a great time for wine lovers.
• DWWA 2021 highlights: In Tuscany, we feature 19 of this year’s top award-winning Brunello di Montalcino 2016 and Riserva 2015 wines.
• Wine to 5: Mags Janjo on life as a wine importer, educator and consultant.

SPAIN GUIDE 2021

including:

• Great Rioja Vintages you can drink now: prime bottles, now drinking marvellously, selected by Simon Field MW.
• A new era for Priorat: a look at the region’s new classification system.
• A fresh look at Txakoli: Pedro Ballesteros Torres MW looks at Txakoli’s revival and gastronomic appeal.
• Exploring Valencia: Shawn Hennessey’s guide for the city’s vibrant cultural and food & wine scene.

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While Champagne gets much of the sparkling wine glory, with its established image of prestige, and Prosecco the lion’s share of attention at the more affordable end of the market, there is no French wine category more versatile and complex than its crémant sparkling wines.

Scroll down for tasting notes and scores on the 25 top-scoring crémants

This single designation comprises eight officially classified appellation regions within France, including Crémant de Alsace, de Bordeaux, de Bourgogne, de Loire and de Limoux, each with its own distinct style and unique blend of grapes best-suited to its region.

Indeed a glass of crémant could comprise 100% of varieties including Riesling, Chenin Blanc or Jacquère, a 50/50 blend of Sauvignon Blanc and Muscadelle, or Champagne varieties Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.

Unlike Prosecco, which undergoes fermentation in tank, these traditional-method French sparkling wines are made in the same labour-intensive way as Champagne, with a secondary bottle fermentation and ageing in bottle on lees for a minimum of nine months or longer, to develop body and complexity.

More than 800 élaborateurs make about 110 million bottles annually, according to the federation representing crémant producers across France, FNPEC. While crémant production volumes are about one third of Champagne’s total, and it may lack the historical associations of Champagne, crémant is experiencing a surge of popularity and is increasingly the fizz of choice for wine lovers seeking the sweet spot between price and quality.

‘Since March 2020 and the first lockdown, we were interested to see that our sales of Prosecco dropped significantly, and we sold more crémant and Cava than ever before’, says Lindsay Poole, director of UK merchant Wine Poole. The same trend has been noticed again this year and Poole attributes it to the wines being less sweet than Prosecco. It’s for this reason she believes that the company has also seen a rise in the popularity of Italy’s Franciacorta sparkling wines.

Taste exploration

Trevor Gulliver, CEO and co-founder of St John group, which recently added a house Crémant de Limoux cuvée to its wine shop offering, believes ‘people will pay for sense of place, tradition and quality’ and would argue that ‘terroir or place is not uppermost in people’s minds when it comes to regular Cava or Prosecco’.

Regarding the crémant market, Sylvie Lacube, marketing manager for Domaine J Laurens in Languedoc, says: ‘At one point, Cava and Prosecco were so trendy that it was more difficult to sell a crémant. But after a while, people begin looking for something with more body and finesse, even if the wines are more expensive.’

And in terms of price points, crémants at the £10-£20 mark are the most popular at The Wine Society, although the UK merchant is seeing ‘encouraging growth over £20, too’, with the category overall ‘representing nearly half of the total non-Champagne sparkling sales’, according to sparkling wine buyer Sarah Knowles MW.

But where crémant’s range of styles might potentially lead to confusion for consumers, the category does also provide a perfect opportunity for exploration.

See all regional Crémant tasting notes and scores

27 Crémant d’Alsace

68 Crémant de Bourgogne

8 Crémant de Limoux

11 Crémant de Loire

2 Crémant de Jura

1 Crémant Savoie

As with all wines, broad generalisations are difficult, with the different regional terroirs, viticulture and vinification all playing a part.

However, if you’re interested in exploring sparkling wines that show yeasty, buttery patisserie flavours from ageing on the lees, look to crémants with a more neutral base, such as those made predominantly from Pinot Blanc (Alsace), Chardonnay and Pinot Noir (Bourgogne), Chardonnay and Savagnin (Jura), or Chardonnay and Jacquère (Savoie).

For fruitier styles, look to the Loire and Limoux for high-acid, crisp and appley Chenin Blanc and Chardonnay-based wines – you’ll also find red fruit flavours from Cabernet Franc in the former, and even tropical elements from the Mauzac grape in the latter.

For aromatic and floral wines from Clairette, Aligoté and Muscat, look out for the crémants of Die in the Drôme.

Vintage crémant bottlings are usually richer and more complex, suited for longer ageing and better at pairing with food, while most crémant non-vintage bottlings are refreshing, juicy and zesty, and make an excellent apéritif.

Many crémants are best consumed within two or three years of purchase, although some bottles have the capacity to age beyond 10. Serve cold, between 5°C-8°C, with lighter wines at the cooler end and the more structured at the other.

Below are 25 of the best-scoring crémants out of a total of 120 tasted in June 2021.

25 top-scoring crémants

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If any wine region could be said to contain multitudes, it’s Alsace. I’ve concentrated on Riesling, the most soulful and pure-spirited of Alsace’s varieties – but never forget that Alsace is deeply sensual, too. Its other great varieties are Pinot Gris, which acquires a depth of personality, a succulent orchard style and a fleshy, textured grandeur here which comprehensively eludes it elsewhere; and the ever-heady Gewurztraminer which, in the right hands, is not only entrancingly perfumed but dense, rich, creamy, stony and spicy – almost a foodstuff in itself.

Maybe you prefer something a little less demonstrative with dinner? In that case, look out for Pinot Blanc (which will contain a big dollop of Alsace’s most secretive variety, Auxerrois) or Sylvaner. Even better, hunt down one of the new generation of ‘Gentil’ blends (cunning compounds of at least 50% of Riesling, Pinot Gris, Gewurztraminer and/or Muscat, with the balance from Syvlaner, Chasselas and/or Pinot Blanc/Auxerrois, each vinified separately) or ambitious informal field blends. There are increasingly impressive Pinot-based red wines, sparkling crémant and dessert wines galore, too. The dry Muscat wines are a huge contrast to their southern cousins – thanks to their freshening Muscat Ottonel component.

If you crave terroir, finally, Alsace is a wonderland of different soil types and wine expressions. Compare the same varieties grown on granite, on limestone, on sandstone and on volcanic soils with ease, simply by referring to the profiles of the grand cru top-quality sites in books or on the web; the new category (since 2011) of wines that can add a terroir-specific lieu-dit locality to their name is expanding this range further.

Good: Hugel, Classic Riesling 2019 – 91 points

Better: Domaine Weinbach, Cuvée Théo Riesling 2018 – 93 points

Best: Albert Boxler, Riesling Grand Cru Sommerberg 2017 – 95 points

Andrew Jefford’s Alsace Riesling picks:

Spend a weekend in Alsace: Travel guide

Time to try Alsace Pinot Noir

In the northeast corner of France, the Alsace region is something of a hidden treasure for white wine lovers. Whether looking for a refreshing aperitif, a rich and complex sweet wine or something in between, Alsace offers fine and definitive expressions across the board – as evidenced by the many award winners at the Decanter World Wine Awards year after year.

Aromatic grape varieties, namely Alsace’s ‘noble’ Riesling, Gewurztraminer, Pinot Gris and Muscat, are the region’s specialty. ‘Riesling in Alsace is great – it’s very terroir-driven,’ said Ronan Sayburn MS, Regional Chair for Alsace at DWWA 2020. ‘In Alsace you have a lot of soil types, so the expressions of Riesling in Alsace are fantastic.’

Ahead of judging, Sayburn continued: ‘I’m also looking forward to Gewurztraminer and Pinot Gris, even with residual sugar; and with Alsace, I’ll definitely be looking forward to the sweeter, vendange tardive styles.’

From sparkling to sweet, discover here which Alsace wines scored best at the 2020 competition…

The Best in Show

Gustave Lorentz, Vieilles Vignes Riesling Grand Cru Altenberg-de-Bergheim 2016

97 points, Best in Show

US$39.95 Envoyer, Woodland Hills

The golden mean: that’s what Alsace can offer to Riesling enthusiasts. A wine which is not raspingly or cuttingly dry, but not unctuously sweet either; a wine with backbone and structure, yet which can still tease and charm as only Riesling knows how. That’s what you’ll find in this grand cru version from the celebrated Altenberg de Bergheim vineyard: its sunny, south-facing marls have produced a tender, intricate yet roundcontoured version with scents of summer fruits and citrus peels, and limpid, vivacious flavours given gravity by a textured fullness and a little greensap at the finish. It’s a dry wine, but not demandingly so, and would drink well with food or without. Alcohol 13%

Aimé Stentz, Gewurztraminer Sélection de Grains Nobles 2017

97 points, Best in Show

N/A UK www.vins-stentz.fr

Few varieties can run the gamut from dry to sweet as engagingly as Gewurztraminer, with its personality intact from start to finish. That personality, though, is broad enough to contain multitudes when the wine is well made – as here. Look out for a creamy softness in the aromas, as well as pressed rose and whipped cold-cream; there’s just a little lychee, but the ginger spice is very discreet. On the palate, the wine is rich, harmonious and gratifying, its sweetness saturated with aroma and thus lively and fresh. It has both acidity and the distinctive faint bitterness so typical of Gewurztraminer, and these bring more balance and poise to the lush and luxurious palate. Perfect late afternoon sipping. Alc 14.5%

Sparkling

Beblenheim, Crémant d’Alsace Blanc de Noirs Brut NV

95 points, Gold

N/A UK www.cave-beblenheim.com

Rich, complex nose of tropical fruit, vanilla custard and sweet spices. Gentle rolling mousse on the palate with rich flavours. Showing depth and longevity. Alc 12.5%

Beblenheim, Black Rose Crémant d’Alsace Brut Rosé NV

95 points, Gold

€12.90 www.cave-beblenheim.com

Elegant and attractive nose of white peach, apricot and nectarine. Vibrant and fresh acidity cuts through a creamy palate. Freshness right through to the finish. Alc 12.5%

Frey-Sohler, Crémant d’Alsace Riesling Brut NV

93 points, Silver

£16.50 Cavavin

Shows exotic fruit and floral aromas, with notes of blossom, pears and green apple skin. On the palate there is effervescent fizz along with bright acidity and a long finish. Alc 12.5%

Dry

Pfaff, Cuvée Jupiter Riesling 2019

95 points, Gold

£14 Myliko International

Lime zest and orange nose with touches and petrol. Taut acidity cutting through the fleshy palate leading to a long, dry and zesty finish. Alc 12.5%

Gustave Lorentz, Riesling Grand Cru Kanzlerberg 2016

94 points, Silver

N/A UK www.gustavelorentz.com

Precise and crisp nose of mandarin and lemon fruits. Elevated acidity with poise and complexity. Classy through to the finish. Alc 13%

Dopff-au-Moulin, Riesling Grand Cru Schoenenbourg 2017

93 points, Silver

£30.64 (2016) Wine Poole

Jasmine and white peach aromas with a taut grapefruit backbone. Weighty yet elegant on the palate with fresh acidity. Alc 13.5%

Domaine Fernand Engel, Riesling Grand Cru Praelatenberg 2017

93 points, Silver

£34.55 Tannico

Gun smoke and ripe yellow apple notes on the nose. Rich and full on the palate lifted by a firm acidity and mineral, orange citrus finish. Alc 14%

Lucien Albrecht, Riesling Grand Cru Spiegel 2017

93 points, Silver

N/A UK www.lucien-albrecht.com

Honeyed nose with hints of zesty orange. Ripe passion fruit on the palate with an intense character and spicy finish. Alc 12.9%

Medium

Dopff-au-Moulin, Gewurztraminer Grand Cru Brand 2018

97 points, Platinum

£28.70-£32.61 (2017) 23 Wine & Whiskey, Corking Wines, Exel, Fintry Wines, The Wineman

An exuberant wine with intensely aromatic lychee, pineapple and rose petal. Rich and intense on the palate with energetic acidity and deep complexity. Warming spice on a powerful long finish. Extremely classy wine. Alc 14%

Dopff & Irion, Château de Riquewihr, Les Sorcières Gewurztraminer 2017

96 points, Gold

N/A UK www.dopff-irion.com

Intense and aromatic nose of Seville marmalade, mango, lychee and saffron. Suave palate with exotic fruit, creamy and luscious texture with a powerful, long finish. Alc 13.5%

Lucien Albrecht, Gewurztraminer Grand Cru Spiegel 2017

96 points, Gold

N/A UK www.lucien-albrecht.com

Gloriously aromatic nose of guava, mango and spiced banana. Gentle rose petal with fine aromatics. Complex on the palate with an exceptional, long finish. Alc 13.9%

Vignoble des 2 Lunes, Gewurztraminer Grand Cru Hengst 2017

96 points, Gold

N/A UK www.vignobledes2lunes.fr

Ripe and rich orange marmalade and ginger spice on the nose. Intense and complex mouthfeel with a lick of racy acidity. Warm and spicy finish. Alc 15%

Dopff & Irion, Château de Riquewihr, Les Maquisards Pinot Gris 2017

95 points, Gold

N/A UK www.dopff-irion.com

Rich and buttery aromas with honeyed fruit and white pepper spice. Weighty palate with fleshy fruit to match. Long finish with rich, intense character. Alc 13.5%

Kirrenbourg, Roche Granitique Gewurztraminer 2018

94 points, Silver

€18 (2016) www.domainekirrenbourg.fr

Banana and sweet spice with notes of lychee tropical fruits. Full-bodied, deep and complex palate with saffron spice and honey. Alc 15%

Pfaff, Pinot Gris Grand Cru Steinert 2017

94 points, Silver

£22.50 Myliko International

Mango and tropical fruit aromas with touches of spice and citrus peel. Generous and concentrated palate with a long reaching finish. Alc 14%

Sweet

Fernand Engel, Schofweg Pinot Gris Vendanges Tardives 2018

97 points, Platinum

€35 www.fernand-engel.fr

Fabulously exotic nose of mango, spiced lychee and ripe orange zest. Rich and intense on the palate with complex and firm flavours. Long finish with plenty of potential to develop. Alc 12%

Jérôme Meyer, Plaisir du Vigneron Gewurztraminer 2018

97 points, Platinum

€17 (2016) www.vins-alsace-meyer.fr

Ripe apricot and gingerbread aromas laced with confit lemon and pear. Pure and lifted acidity on the palate with gorgeous fruit and mouthfeel. Long and floral on the finish: a sensational wine. Alc 12.5%

Pierre Sparr, Gewurztraminer Grand Cru Mambourg 2018

95 points, Gold

€14.50 (2017) www.vins-sparr.com

Intense nose of lychee, rosewater, mango and overripe banana with touches of spice. Splendid palate with smooth texture and rich, lovely fruit flavours. Delicious right through to the finish. Alc 13%

Search all DWWA 2020 results

Decanter World Wine Awards home

Domaine Valentin Zusslin is a textbook example of the qualitative evolution that Alsace is experiencing today.

Owned by the same family for 13 generations, the estate benefits from a long heritage in the region while adopting a very contemporary approach to viticulture.

Scroll down for tasting notes and scores on Domaine Valentin Zusslin Riesling Grand Cru Pfingstberg 2009-2015

Jean-Marie Zusslin – the father of Marie and Jean-Paul, who now run the family enterprise – was a pioneer of biodynamic farming in Alsace, introducing the practice at the estate in 1997.

When Marie and Jean-Paul took the reins in 2000 (responsible respectively for the commercial and wine-growing activities), both shared the vision of perpetuating their father’s legacy while also fine-tuning the viticulture, notably by adopting a more parcellary, plot-focused management of the vineyard holdings.

Site-specific approach

A significant result was the decision to produce a special bottling from the Clos Liebenberg, four hectares of vines sheltered by wild hedges, stone walls, and a forest.

Entirely owned by the estate, this vineyard is thus what the French wine-growers designate as a ‘monopole’. Their site-specific approach reaches a summit with the single grand cru of their portfolio, Alsace Grand Cru Pfingstberg.

Passionate about biodynamic farming, Jean-Paul implements an ambitious, haute-couture approach to both viticulture and barrel ageing for certain wines, using oak sourced from the Vosges forest.

The result is a fine selection of aromatically complex and precise wines that have both density of texture and vivacity on the palate.

Today, the estate owns 16ha of vines and produces around 900,000 bottles per year, including their top-level sparkling Crémant d’Alsace.

Among the different bottlings, Zusslin highlights three terroirs for their particular characteristics:

Bollenberg

This site is also called ‘la colline aux sorcières’ or Witch Hill. It is hard to understand why this terroir, of which a central element is its soil composed of marl-sandstone limestone, is not classified as a grand cru site.

The climatic conditions here are almost identical to those of Marseille on the south coast of France, with very little rainfall (350 to 450 mm per year), making this a sunbaked terroir where water stress is frequent.

Zusslin produces Riesling, Muscat, Pinot Gris and Sylvaner from this site.

Clos Liebenberg 

This 4ha monopole is located at the top of the Pfingstberg hill at an altitude of 380m. It has marly-sandstone soils and benefits from a south to southeast orientation. Only Riesling is grown here.

Grand Cru Pfingstberg 

This sizeable, southeast-facing grand cru vineyard covers 28ha on marly-limestone-sandstone soils. Its altitude varies between 270m and 370m.

The wines produced here are always less exuberant than other grands crus. While Gewurztraminer from some sites can tend to be a bit heavy-handed, the terroir of Pfingstberg imparts a welcome lively tension.

The same goes for the Muscat, which is fresh and fine-boned, while the ageworthy Rieslings have remarkable density and aromatic clarity.

The wines

Like many estates in Alsace, Domaine Zusslin produces wines that offer unbeatable value for money – all the more so in that they age well.

This vertical tasting focused on seven vintages of the Riesling Grand Cru Pfingstberg: 2009 through to the current release, 2015.

The characteristics of each vintage are described in the tasting notes, and provide a telling demonstration of how wide a scope of climatic conditions exists in the Alsace region of eastern France.

These can run the gamut from the cold winters of 2011 and 2010 to hot summers such as the ones that marked 2009 and 2010, as well as cooler years as in 2014 or very wet ones, as was the case for the 2012 and 2013 vintages.

Domaine Zusslin is currently looking for a UK importer. In the US, its wines are imported by Avant Garde Wine & Spirits (New York, Texas, Georgia, Florida, North and South Carolina), Weygandt Wines (California, Illinois, Washington DC, Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Washington State), and Estelle Imports (Oregon).

See the Valentin Zusslin Riesling Grand Cru Pfingstberg 2009-2015 vertical tasting notes and scores:

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Situated in one of the oldest Medieval towns in Alsace, Domaine Jean Sipp has roots dating back to the 17th century and has, since the 1950s, been forging a reputation for quality winemaking.

The estate and its holdings lie in and around the commune of Ribeauvillé, the heart of the region’s winelands, in the Haut-Rhin department in Grand Est in north-eastern France.

Scroll down for the Jean Sipp tasting notes and scores

With one of the oldest winemaking co-operatives in the country, Ribeauvillé is located not far from the German border to the east and is almost equidistant between the French city of Strasbourg to the north and Switzerland’s Basel to the south.

Terroir

Vineyards are planted among the foothills of the Vosges mountains, sheltering vines from oceanic influences and western winds and the region famously benefits from a microclimate that has the lowest rainfall in France.

It also has one of the most extreme variations in soil types comprising parcels of granite, clay, limestone, sandstone, marl, volcanic soil, schist and more.

Varying elevations, expositions and micro-terroirs each play their part in creating wines with aromatic complexity and expressive flavour characteristics.

The estate

Domaine Jean Sipp owns 23ha of prime vineyard locations, including 50 separate plots over five communes with three Grand Crus – jewels in the estate’s crown; Kirchberg, Osterberg and Altenberg de Bergheim.

Since 2013, the domaine has been under the helm of Jean-Guillaime Sipp. He took over from his parents, Martine and Jean-Jaques who retired after 40 years in the business, but still remain active for pleasure.

Jean-Guillaume brought knowledge and experience from agricultural studies and training stints at Domaines Zind-Humbrecht in Alsace, Olivier Leflaive in Burgundy, Marcel Guigal the Rhône and Domaine Mont-Redon in Chateauneuf-du-Pape.

Working together with his wife Céline, who studied oenology in Champagne, the estate is run with meticulous precision and with a philosophy of quality not quantity. It is respectful of the environment with Jean-Guillaume preferring to work the soil in order to better exploit terroir characteristics in the resulting wines.

The estate started organic conversion in 2018 with hopes of certification next year.

Domaine Jean Sipp at a glance

Exposure: 80% south-south-east and south-south-west

Soil: Argilo-calcareous, pebbly in certain places at Ribeauvillé and Bergheim. Sandy, resting on a layer of clay-bonded sand at St-Hippolyte.

Aspect: Steep slopes ranging from 10% to over 40%

Grape varieties planted: Sylvaner, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Auxerrois, Riesling, Muscat, Tokay, Pinot Gris, Gewurztraminer and Pinot Noir

Vine planting density: 4,500-5,500 per ha

Yields: 40-50hl/ha for Grand Cru, 60l/ha for younger vine, reserve quality wines

Average vine age: 5-25 for reserve wines, 10-40 years for Grand Cru, over 30 years for Vielles-Vignes with certain parcels that are 50 years old

Annual production: Around 120,000 bottles

Export market: 7%

With eight varieties under vine, the range is large and covers sweet, dry and sparkling styles offering a choice of generic wines through to grand crus and old-vine bottlings.

During harvest, which can last until mid-November, grapes are checked and tasted for full ripeness before being manually picked. In certain vintages, those from grand cru sites or destined for late-harvest bottlings will be sorted twice before being transported in 150kg tubs to the press.

Grapes will be pressed within two hours of picking, then fermented in stainless steel tanks before being aged, some on lees, and then bottled.

Particular focus is dedicated to Riesling, Pinot Gris and Gewurztraminer in various iterations of which the Pinot Gris Réserve 2018, Gewurztraminer Cuvée Particulière 2016, Grand Cru Kirchberg Riesling 2016 and Crémant Brut Blanc de Blanc were tasted for this feature.

In detail

Pinot Gris Réserve, 2018

For this wine, Jean-Guillaume said he looks for the ‘expression of the grape and to bring out the freshness’. Grapes from clay-limestone soils are manually harvested then pressed for 3-4 hours followed by fermentation for two months and four months ageing before being bottled. He said this specific vinification produces a wine ‘with notes of toasted hazelnuts and vanilla and a crunchy mouthfeel.’

On the palate, it’s bursting with character, nuanced and rich with a gourmet structure making it perfect for food pairing. See full tasting notes for all wines below.

2018 vintage conditions

Vintage conditions in 2018 saw a wet first half of the year with Alsace receiving a year’s worth of rain in the first seven months. January was mild followed by snow and temperatures of -13°C at the end of February. March and April were wet but temperatures soon soared with flowering two weeks early in June with a 40°C heat spike in August. The hot and sunny weather continued throughout September and October giving leisurely conditions to the harvest. A generous vintage in both quality and quantity, and particularly successful for Pinot Gris and Pinot Noir as well as the late-harvest wines.

Gewurztraminer Cuvée Particulière, 2016

For Jean-Guillaume, Gewurztraminer is one of his last harvested wines and follows the same manual picking methods as Pinot Gris but experiences a longer pressing of six hours which allows them to extract the grape’s ‘maximum aromatic potential’ with the 2016 offering ‘notes of roses and lychee, typical of this variety’. A two month fermentation and four month ageing period follow before being bottled.

An off-dry style, this wine was extremely expressive with a satisfying texture and balanced acidity.

Grand Cru Kirchberg Riesling, 2016

This wine is from clay and limestone soils which Jean-Guillaume believes gives the wine ‘freshness and salinity’ as well as ‘typical notes of citrus and particularly mandarin’.

Kirchberg has historic links, with a citation first recorded in 1328, and is said to cover the best terroirs of the town.

It is a later-harvesting Riesling terroir of 2.5ha and the grapes go through a longer fermentation process often lasting until the end of winter following the harvest.

The wine is complex with crystalline precision and driving freshness.

2016 vintage conditions

A warm start to the year turned cool by spring with an extremely wet July. Weather improved for flowering and summer was warm and dry with no rain until mid-September. Good ripening conditions throughout harvest but little to no botrytis meant that the later-harvested Vendange Tardive Sélection de Grains Nobles suffered in quantity.

Overall yields for the other styles were normal and the vintage returned to producing a more classic and elegant profile of Riesling, Pinot Gris and Gewurztraminer compared to the richer wines from 2015.

Crémant Brut Blanc de Blanc

The domaine produces four Crémants made in the traditional method including a Rosé, Blanc de Blanc and Blanc de Noirs as well as a new special barrel-aged bottling called L’Evidence.

Each wine is designed to display the personality of the Alsation grapes used and benefit from the specific geological conditions offering a nuanced combination of floral tones and white and red fruit flavours all with a fine effervescence.

The one tasted is a blend of Pinot Blanc and Pinot Auxerrois grapes with a residual sugar level of 6.6g/l and acidity of 4.88g/l.

It is fresh and inviting with finessed bubbles and ideal as an aperitif or celebration wine

UK importer Jeroboams has been working with the estate for 15 years now and, while Alsace remains a small part of the UK market, wine director Peter Mitchell MW believes Domaine Jean Sipp represents ‘outstanding value for the quality they offer’ and highlights the ‘balance and purity of their wines’.

For Mitchell, ‘the star is the Riesling Kirchberg which in every vintage manages the tricky balance of opulent richness, aromatic precision and a startling fresh clarity.

‘Over the years, sales for this have steadily grown as more customers are introduced to it and have recognised the value of great Alsace Riesling compared to many of the world’s other finest wines.’

With excellent approachability now as well as a long ageing potential, particularly the Riesling, these are worth seeking out, and with more than 30 wines in the range there’s plenty to explore.

See the Jean Sipp tasting notes and scores

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Sit back with a glass in hand and tackle this Alsace wine crossword. Can you get all of the clues to these grapes, regions, producers and more….?



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Keith Bond, Blackburn, Lancashire, UK, asks: It is my understanding that a varietal wine produced in the EU must constitute a minimum 85% of the stated variety on the label.

Why then can bottles of Alsace Pinot Blanc, and labelled as Pinot Blanc, have anything up to 100% Auxerrois in the blend, and still be sold as Pinot Blanc?

Yohan Castaing, a France-based wine writer and founder-editor of anthocyanes.fr, replies: Yes, within the EU, any wine that contains a minimum 85% of a stated grape variety may display its name on the label. From another angle, this means that if a grape variety is stated on a label, it must comprise at least 85% of the wine. However, there are some administrative subtleties.

Looking specifically at Pinot Blanc and Auxerrois, an age-old tradition held that the two grape varieties were informally given the same name. Many varieties of unknown origin or name planted in northeast France were customarily called ‘Auxerrois’.

For example, it was not until 1872 that the difference between Pinot Blanc and Chardonnay was officially acknowledged. This centuries-old tradition has continued in Alsace, and the wine production specifications for the appellation took into account some traditional practices.

Thus, if the label mentions AP Alsace Pinot Blanc, the wine can be a 100% Pinot Blanc or a blend of Pinot Blanc and the real Auxerrois variety. If the wine is 100% Auxerrois, the producer can label it either as Auxerrois or Pinot Blanc. On the other hand, a 100% Pinot Blanc wine cannot use the name Auxerrois.

It should be noted that Pinot Blanc and Auxerrois are not in fact the same grape variety. The first had its origin as a genetic mutation in the colour of Pinot Gris, while Auxerrois derives from Pinot and Gouais Blanc, a forgotten but prolific grape variety that had more than 80 progenies across Europe, including Chardonnay and Riesling.

Indeed, French appellation laws can hold many subtle administrative surprises.

This question first appeared in the September 2020 issue of Decanter magazine.

See also: Champagne alternatives: 22 Crémant d’Alsace wines to try

Crémant d’Alsace is France’s best-selling AOC sparkling wine after Champagne and it’s easy to see why with both appealing quality and affordability.

Scroll down for 22 Crémant d’Alsace tasting notes and scores

However, because the majority of bottles are consumed domestically – around 90% – only a select few bottles make it onto foreign shelves leaving this region perfect for exploration.

Officially recognised in 1976, the category represents a quarter of Alsace’s total wine production. Made in the same traditional method as Champagne, with the second fermentation in bottle, these wines not only offer complexity but also rounded flavours and fine bubbles.

Grapes grow in slightly drier, warmer and sunnier conditions compared to Champagne, resulting in riper grapes giving dry but lively and fruity wines with a light body, fine mousse and sometimes creamy palate.

Grapes must be hand harvested, usually in advance of neighbouring appellations, and can only be comprised of Pinot Blanc (the dominant varietal), Noir and Gris, together with the related Auxerrois, as well as Chardonnay and Riesling. For rosés, only Pinot Noir is allowed.

• Pinot Blanc provides freshness, elegance and crispness
• Riesling adds lively fruit flavours
• Pinot Gris adds body
• Chardonnay gives a fine, light touch

Only the first 100l of each 150kg of pressed grapes can be used and wine must be aged for a minimum of nine months on lees imparting a brioche, biscuit or toast characteristic to the dominant orchard fruit flavours.

The majority of production tends to be non-vintage bottlings though some estates produce special vintage, or single-vineyard, cuvées. The top four wines in this tasting were vintage specific, aged for longer and therefore slightly fuller in body and character. Three in total came from the 2013 vintage, all of which are still showing exceptional freshness proving the ageing capabilities of these wines.

The tasting showcased a range in dryness with many producers favouring extra brut, brut nature or brut zéro styles with little to no sugar added at the point of disgorgement. These allow the soft citrus and apple flavours to shine through while brut styles can impart honeyed lemon and tropical fruit flavours.

A wonderful attribute of Crémant d’Alsace is that they work just as well on their own as with food. A wine perfect to toast and sip at celebrations (serve between 5-7°C) but also fit for brunches, picnics, canapés and alongside fresh fish or cheese dishes.

An all-round quality and affordable option and worth tracking down for individual estates to ship overseas.

22 Crémant d’Alsace wines to try

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With history dating back to the fifteenth-century, Hugel are one of the oldest and best-known producers within France.

Scroll down to see Andy Howard MW’s Hugel tasting notes and scores

Based in Riquewihr since 1639, Hugel survived the 30 Years War, the French Revolution, Napoleonic Wars, the Franco-Prussian War, and two World Wars.

With its distinct yellow labelled bottles, it is one of the most recognised and respected wine families. Marc, Marc-Andre and Jean-Frédéric are the twelfth and thirteenth generation of the family, and the Fells tasting in February provided a great opportunity to taste and discuss the wines in detail with Jean-Frédéric.

Famille Hugel Factfile

Located: In Riquehihr, Alsace

Founded: in 1639 by Hans-Ulrich Hugel, a Swiss national

Vineyards: 30ha of which over half are Grand Cru

Key holdings: In Shoenenbourg (Riesling), Sporen (Pinot Gris) and Pflostig (Pinot Noir/Gris)

Team: Marc Hugel, winemaker, Jean-Frédéric and Marc-Andre.

Average production: 100,000 cases per annum, 90% exported

Wine ranges: – Gentil (blend); Classic; Estate; Grossi Laüe; Schoelhammer Riesling; Vendange Tardive, Sélection de Grains Nobles

Hugel’s vineyards total 30ha, with the majority Grand Cru. Grapes from a further 100ha are purchased with the estate focussed on varietal wines made from Muscat, Pinot Gris, Gewürztraminer and Riesling. All grapes are picked by hand, with just one blend being produced – Gentil.

When asked what was the common identity running through all Hugel wines, Jean-Frederic’s answer was ‘purity: purity of fruit with the Gentil or Classic ranges, but also purity in the way that nothing gets in the way of the terroir’.

The tasting showed that these wines are benchmarks for their respective grape varieties, with higher quality tiers adding extra layers of complexity, concentration and individuality. The purity of flavour described was certainly evident – Hugel observing ‘we believe winemaking is the opposite of terroir. We want to show as little of it as possible’.

Hugel has clear views on how this historical wine family continues to evolve, likening it to the Japanese term for continuous improvement – ‘kaizen’. Half the estate has been converted to organic viticulture (although this is not shown on the label).

More oak is now used in the form of barrique (up to 40% of the cuvée but with no new wood) and experiments took place with skin contact on Riesling and Gewürztraminer in the 2019 vintage. Jean- Frédéric declared himself ‘quite fond of the result – I think we will try it again when the conditions allow’.

As well as the Gentil blend, Hugel produce a number of different varietal wine tiers, starting with the Classic level which also includes 100% Pinot Blanc, Sylvaner and Pinot Noir in addition to the Alsace ‘Big 4’. The emphasis is on crisp, unadulterated fruit, balanced with fine acidity and texture on the palate. Riesling and Gewürztraminer were shown at the Fells tasting, and are classic examples of both variety and appellation.

Read the Famille Hugel Producer Profile here

Terroir Focus

From the 2012 vintage, Hugel moved away from its Jubilee brand (introduced in 1989 to celebrate the company’s 350th anniversary) to establish a more terroir focused tiering. With all grapes taken from parcels within Hugel’s vineyards, the range starts with ‘Estate’ wines; Grossi Laüe (local Alsacian dialect for ‘finest vineyards’) and a specific selection from one of Riquewihr’s most revered slopes – Riesling Schoelhammer.

Grossi Laüe wines aim to, at least, match German Grosses Gewächs and Burgundian Grand Cru. From the wines tasted, there seems little reason to dispute this quality level is being achieved.

Hugel’s Grossi Laüe Riesling 2013 comes from two plots within the Schoenenbourg Grand Cru and is only just starting to open up. This is a wine with decades life still left. Schoelhammer Riesling is from a 0.6ha plot with just 30 rows of vines. This historical site is considered by Hugel to be the greatest part of the famous Grand Cru vineyard of Schoenenbourg. The intensity, concentration and ageing potential of this wine is remarkable.

Finally, Hugel showed some stunning Vendanges Tardives and SGN Gewürztraminer. These sweeter wines can be produced with Pinot Gris, Riesling or Gewürztraminer grapes. These are thrilling examples capable of ageing for 50+ years, as shown by the 1976 Gewürztraminer SGN – still relatively adolescent!

See Andy Howard MW’s Hugel tasting notes and scores

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Much has been written about its Rieslings, but less is said about Alsace’s Pinot Noir. This is largely because Pinot only accounts for 10% of the region’s total production.

The Alsace region

Alsace is a unique place, torn between French and German ownership down the centuries. With the Vosges mountain range on its western border and the Rhine on its eastern flank, it seems like a somewhat isolated outpost of France and – certainly when it comes to its wines – it has more in common with its German neighbours across the Rhine. Here lies the Black Forest and the German wine region of Baden, which produces similarly feather-touch Pinots of fragrance and earthiness.

Perhaps Alsace’s key feature is its geography and geology. The region spans a narrow corridor about 75 miles long, running approximately north to south, and all along its length the Vosges mountains create a rain shadow, making Alsace one of France’s driest regions.

Additionally, the geology here is incredibly diverse, with 13 identified soil types. These range from volcanic soils, granite and schist in the mountainous areas to the west, to limestone and marl-clay in the foothills and loess and alluvial deposits on the plain.

The benefit to growers is that they can use this extraordinary diversity of terroirs much like ingredients and seasoning in food. While some have chosen to focus on the character a particular soil type brings to a wine – austerity from grapes grown on schist, or bright acidity from limestone, for example – others blend different terroirs for a more rounded approach.

Alsace Pinot Noir

The main sticking point for Pinot Noir is that Alsace Grand Cru wines can only be made from specific white varieties – there are no red grands crus. Although there are some delicious examples out there, including those sourced from grand cru vineyards, the inability to designate a Pinot Noir wine as a Grand Cru surely affects the variety’s ability to be marketed as effectively as the whites.

Some producers at least hint at a Pinot’s grand cru roots by including the first initial of the vineyard in the name of the wine – for instance, Muré’s V Pinot Noir is from the Vorbourg grand cru, and Kirrenbourg’s Terroir B Pinot Noir is from the Brand grand cru.

It may be a pain for producers looking to sell their wines at the best prices, but for consumers it represents an opportunity to pick up a relative bargain compared to the arguably better-known Pinot Noirs, or Spätburgunders, from across the river. And let’s not forget that Alsace Pinot Noir offers an alternative, lighter, even more fragrant style to that bastion of French Pinot, Burgundy.

Alsace Pinot Noir to try:

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Styles evolve in Alsace as everywhere else. The climate changes, fashion demands new flavours, growers find different solutions. Pinot Gris used to be a rare grape in Alsace, with only 2% or 3% of the vineyard area. Then fashion swung its way in the 1980s and 1990s, and within a couple of decades or so it was up to 15%.

Scroll down for Margaret Rand’s top 17 Pinot Gris wines from Alsace

That’s Pinot Gris, of course, not Pinot Grigio. Alsace is Pinot Gris as it ought to be, not some insipid pretence at wine for those who don’t like the flavour of wine. (There are serious Italian versions, of course, and those people have a lot of preconceptions to overcome.) Alsace Pinot Gris is probably the reference for the grape. But references evolve, too.

Alsace as a whole is edging towards drier wines, having given us sweeter and sweeter wines in the 1990s and 2000s whether we wanted them or not. The irony is that the region is trying to make drier wines at a time when the climate is determined to give riper and riper grapes.

Pinot Gris is in the middle of the Alsace sweetness spectrum. Riesling is mostly made dry unless it’s sweet; Gewurztraminer is mostly sweet unless it’s dry. Pinot Gris can be either, according to the year – but, say the growers, it’s getting more and more difficult to make it dry. But look at the Zind-Humbrecht example below: four grams per litre of residual sugar and 13.5% alcohol. Not only dry, but reasonably light. Yet Zind-Humbrecht was in the forefront of the movement towards ever-greater ripeness and ever-greater power. Okay, it’s a 2012, and that was a vintage of slow sugar accumulation, but still. It’s a sign of change.

‘The best can be the enemy of the good,’ says Olivier Zind-Humbrecht MW. ‘By trying too hard you can end up with unbalanced wines. In Alsace that means picking too ripe, beating the record, and doing as much as you can. But too much is not necessarily good.’

Now he wants elegance and freshness; but that’s never just a question of picking earlier. What you need is physiological ripeness at the same time as sugar ripeness, rather than afterwards, and that long experience of getting grapes really, really ripe has taught him how to get them physiologically ripe earlier, before the sugar rockets.

Even so, there’s only a short window of optimum ripeness with Pinot Gris: leave it a couple of days too long, and you have too much opulence, not enough acidity. Let the yield get too high and quality suffers instantly: it’s as tricky a grape to get right as Pinot Noir.

The 2013 vintage was another year of slow sugar accumulation, and 2014 was also a year of restraint and good acidity. If you, like me, were finding Alsace had become a little too lush, a little top-heavy, then now is the time to come back to it, because (oh, blessed swing of the pendulum!) it’s coming back to us.

Margaret Rand is an award-winning wine writer and author (with Oz Clarke) of Grapes & Wines (Pavillion, 2015, revised)

These wines were the best of those tasted, non-blind, at a trade tasting in London in September 2015.

Margaret’s top Alsace Pinot Gris wine recommendations:

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Standing in one of Alsace’s 51 grands crus, the owner nodded towards his parcel and explained: ‘As you can see, the soil here is granite,’ before adding unhelpfully, ‘but of course it’s a different granite from the hill behind it.’

Scroll down for Stephen Brook’s pick: the best of Alsace Grand Cru Riesling

That’s the problem with Alsace. Its grand cru system is admirably based on terroir, but Alsace simply has too many of them. Burgundy, the model for the Alsace system, is relatively uniform: limestone soils and east-facing sites, with the mid-slopes offering the best and most consistent quality. Alsace’s slopes, in contrast, are composed of limestone, clay, sandstone, marl, volcanic soils, schist and more.

Nor is there widespread agreement on how those soils influence the flavour or structure of the wines. Terroir consists of more than soil type: exposition and elevation – not to mention the human contribution of individual viticulturists and winemakers – all play a part too. Yet there is almost a recognition that, at least for Riesling, the most transparent of grape varieties, it is possible to identify the supreme sites. Such sites are often shared with other grape varieties, although some are better suited to Pinot Gris and Gewurztraminer than Riesling. Alsace isn’t simple.It has to be pointed out that many grands crus are far too large and not of uniform quality. Moreover, many grand cru wines are produced by cooperatives, some aiming high, others humdrum. So the presence of a famous name on the label is no guarantee of quality. That said, the crus highlighted on the following pages do produce some of the world’s greatest Rieslings, and the competition for dry styles from Germany, Austria and Australia, has forced the top producers to ensure their wines are not left trailing in their wake.

Rangen

If Schoenenbourg is bafflingly complex, Rangen is simple: a very steep volcanic slope overlooking the southerly town of Thann. There used to be hundreds of hectares of vines in Thann, however urban sprawl disposed of all but Rangen, making this the only town in Alsace with nothing but grand cru vines.

Rangen is renowned for two great Rieslings: Clos St Urbain from Zind-Humbrecht and Clos St Théobald from Schoffit, each about 6ha. The Eguisheim cooperative Wolfberger also owns more than 4ha. Rangen voluntarily reduced its maximum yield to 50hl/ha, so it’s not surprising that the wines have great concentration, and natural springs ensure the vines are rarely stressed. The site is the steepest in Alsace, and dry stone walls contribute further to its warmth. The soils are deep and it can take 15 years for root systems to develop and transmit the mineral grandeur of Rangen. These are mighty Rieslings, greatly prized and invariably expensive.

Kitterlé

This moderately sized grand cru in the southerly town of Guebwiller is mostly owned by the Schlumberger estate, which first named the vineyard on its labels in 1830. The sandstone terraces are partly south-facing, but as the site is horseshoe-shaped there are numerous exposures. Only one-third is planted to Riesling, mostly on the higher slopes, but the wines show smoky aromas – perhaps derived from volcanic elements in the soil – and exceptional elegance.

Saering

Saering, like Kitterlé, lies close to Guebwiller. Whereas Thomas Schlumberger rates Kitterlé very highly, he sees Saering, with its marl and sandstone soils, as ‘an approachable, beginner’s grand cru, delivering Rieslings that age well in the medium term’. Jean Dirler of Dirler-Cadé is more enthusiastic, though, noting that it excels most in top vintages and that its wines are citric and not especially powerful.

Vorbourg: Clos St Landelin

Vorbourg is a very large southerly grand cru planted to many varieties. Its most exceptional terroir is this 15ha Clos, a monopole of the biodynamic Domaine Muré. It’s south-facing, dry and sunny, planted to a high density, and its stony clay-limestone soil has good drainage. The Rieslings are not especially mineral, but they do have richness, texture and complexity. The lower sectors can attract botrytis, and in the past the Muré wines often had residual sugar, but today they are essentially dry and all the better for it.

Eichberg

This large grand cru sprawls southwest of Eguisheim along gentle slopes. The soil is decomposed sandstone over clay and limestone, and can be quite stony. Although climatically very dry, hydric stress is rare, and the drainage is good. Christian Beyer of Emile Beyer says that Eichberg Rieslings have good acidity and salinity, but also ample body and elegance. Kuentz-Bas also produces good Rieslings from here that it defines as tight and mineral.

Hengst

In Wintzenheim, also close to Colmar, is another large grand cru that delivers wines in a different style to Brand. Its soils are composed of stony marl and limestone with clay, which is why Gewurztraminer is the dominant variety planted. The late Jean Meyer of Josmeyer once described them to me as ‘powerful wines that cling to the palate’. His daughter Céline elaborates: ‘The soils retain moisture so they don’t suffer from stress, and they give wines with amplitude. They are long-distance runners that are not too accessible when young. Yet they have less acidity than wines from Brand.’

Brand

Not far from Colmar is the village of Turckheim, which is flanked by the large grand cru of Brand. It’s a sunny, early-ripening site with soils of granite and mica, and a thin loess topsoil that can lead to hydric stress in very hot years. Olivier Humbrecht MW says there are mineral elements in the soil, but they lie deep and vines need to be mature to extract them. Another biodynamic producer, Josmeyer, also makes fine Riesling from Brand. According to Céline Meyer, ‘the wines are linear and pure, quite austere and saline, like an arrow in style’. Jean Boxler, however, says the warmth of Brand can mean that some wines lack acidity.

Sommerberg

Close to Colmar, Sommerberg is a steep curvaceous site composed of granitic sand that’s rich in mineral deposits. Jean Boxler is the principal producer, who notes that the wines are quite open when young, and always elegant. He bottles two parcels within Sommerberg separately, the airy Eckberg and the dense Dudenstein, so there are clearly variations in exposition and terroir.

Schlossberg

This great terraced hill looms over the villages of Kaysersberg and Kientzheim and is mostly granite, with some loess on the lower slopes. Philippe Blanck of Domaine Paul Blanck notes that Schlossberg was already recognised as a top site in the 1920s. Terraces are supported by dry stone walls that retain the soil and warm the vines. The forest above the hill both protects the vines from cold air and funnels water to them. ‘Granite is a perfect match for Riesling in a Chablisien style,’ says Blanck.

Jacky Barthelmé of Domaine Albert Mann observes: ‘It’s not a site that likes too much heat as it can suffer from hydric stress. Yields shouldn’t exceed 45hl/ha and you should get full ripeness at 12.5%. I’d describe the wine as dry and flinty, spicy and long: slender wines with great finesse that age well.’

Weinbach is the other great domaine here, producing Rieslings in a variety of styles, as the richer, lower slopes are ideal for lightly sweet wines. ‘It’s an unforgiving site,’ says owner Catherine Faller, ‘and we often have to declassify some lots.’ Curiously, there is a separate parcel of Schlossberg that is southeast-facing and called Kirrenbourg. ‘It’s high up and there’s a lot of clay,’ says Blanck, ‘but with global warming its elevation is advantageous and the site is much prized.’

Schoenenbourg

This large, well-drained site in Riquewihr is a geological nightmare, composed of clay, marl, gypsum, limestone and sandstone. It’s not uniform and faces both south and southwest. Lower down, the soil has too much vigour and its wines are less distinguished. Despite being impossible to define as a single terroir, Schoenenbourg is renowned for rich, succulent Rieslings, in sweeter as well as dry styles.

It’s significant that Hugel, an estate that never labelled its wines as grand cru despite owning parcels in two of them, changed tack in 2007, inaugurating ‘Schoelhammer’, a Riesling from mid-slope marl parcels within Schoenenbourg that are planted with lowvigour massal selections. It’s a splendid wine, as is its second wine Grossi Laüe (no, I can’t pronounce it either). There are countless proprietors here, including the iconoclastic Jean-Michel Deiss and Dopff au Moulin.

Rosacker

Although documented from the 15th century, Rosacker is not that well known. A well ventilated site, it faces east and southeast, and its soil is composed of fossil limestone and clay. Half the site is planted with Riesling. It owes its fame to Alsace’s most prestigious wine, Trimbach’s Clos Ste Hune, a wine that’s chiselled, pure and very long-lived. This 1.67ha parcel has been in the Trimbach family for more than two centuries, and many vines date from 1953 or earlier. A single vineyard worker is employed just to care for the Clos.

Geisberg

One of the smallest grands crus, Geisberg is located in Ribeauvillé. The soil is stony but geologically varied, with fossil limestone over clay and sandstone. It’s refreshed by cool winds at night and is almost entirely planted with Riesling. According to Jean Trimbach: ‘Geisberg has breadth on the palate but becomes more mineral with bottle-age.’ André Kientzler was the first grower to demonstrate the quality of this site, and Trimbach followed more recently. Both make splendid Rieslings here.

Kanzlerberg

This tiny grand cru in Bergheim is divided between two principal owners: Gustave Lorentz and Sylvie Spielmann. A 12th-century house at the foot of the vineyard suggests it was probably planted by that time. It’s a cool site as it doesn’t face due south and has heavy clay soils that give slow maturation. Slabs of gypsum, often embedded with semi-precious fluorite slivers, have been unearthed here. These are not the easiest or most approachable Rieslings: they demand ageing yet always retain freshness. Spielmann says: ‘They aren’t that aromatic or fruity, but they have substance on the palate, with volume and minerality.’ They are worth sourcing and cellaring.

Muenchberg, Kastelberg, Wiebelsberg

These grands crus are in northern Alsace. Kastelberg and Wiebelsberg are side by side in Andlau but geologically separate. The very steep Kastelberg looms over the town and its schist and granite soils deliver stylish Rieslings that age very well. It performs best in hot years. The larger Wiebelsberg is composed of weathered sandstone over schist. It’s more precocious than Kastelberg, and its Rieslings have finesse but lack the tension and intensity of the best wines from Kastelberg. Kreydenweiss and Gresser are the best-known producers.

Muenchberg shouldn’t be confused with Moenchberg, a third grand cru in Andlau, although that’s easily done. It’s a spacious and sheltered site in Nothalten that resembles a shallow bowl. From top growers such as Ostertag, it produces concentrated, spicy and structured Rieslings.

Stephen Brook has been a contributing editor to Decanter since 1996, and is a widely published and awarded wine journalist, author and judge

See Stephen Brook’s pick: the best of Alsace Grand Cru Riesling

Wines are ordered, as in the main text, south-to-north according to the location of each grand cru, and then by point scores

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I keep waiting for the moment when Alsace’s charms start to wear thin; it hasn’t happened yet, even after 25 years of living in this corner of France. I still marvel at Colmar’s Petite Venise and Strasbourg’s Quartier des Tanneurs, with its gaily painted, multi-beamed houses lining the river on both sides. And I never tire of the sight of that 150km fringe of neatly trained vines planted at the foot of the Vosges, all the way from Thann in the south to Marlenheim in the north, luxuriantly green in spring and burnished gold in autumn.

One of the best bases is Colmar, well placed for vineyard visits but also a gem of a town, with some spectacular museums – the Musée Unterlinden with its new extension by star architects Herzog & De Meuron is a must. A good place to stay is Hotel Quatorze, whose architect owners have transformed a pharmacy into a modern space offering every comfort. Just around the corner is L’Un des Sens, a funky wine bar specialising in natural wines.

Most well-known domaines (Trimbach, Zind-Humbrecht, Hugel et al) are located within 10 minutes’ drive of the town centre. The only problem will be selecting who to visit and who can receive you; always call or email ahead. Or, if you want to seek out wines you can’t buy back home, consider Zusslin in Orschwihr, a long-established biodynamic domaine where Marie and brother Jean-Paul are making crystalline Riesling, delicately flowery Muscat and a superior crémant.

Talking of crémant, if you need convincing that Alsace can produce decent bubbly, visit Jean-Claude Buecher in Wettolsheim, another small family domaine which took the unusual decision more than 30 years ago to specialise exclusively in sparklers.

See also: Ten top Alsace restaurants

With such a wealth of wine-growers around Colmar, it’s easy to forget about Alsace’s more northerly Bas-Rhin vineyards. Mittelbergheim, one of France’s most beautiful villages, is worth a visit any time of year, with a high point in April when it stages the annual Henter’m Kallerladel open-doors wine festival. Saunter along the main street lined with grand wine houses graced with wrought-iron signs, taste from the likes of Rieffel and Boeckel and finish with lunch at Gilg, famous for its feuilleté chaud du vigneron, a flaky-pastry pork pie marinated in white wine.

Further north, in the village of Traenheim close to Strasbourg, is Mochel, one of the Bas-Rhin’s best, whose streamlined tasting room must be the most beautiful in Alsace, and whose Riesling, Muscat and Pinot Gris are outstanding. A final stop should be at Domaine Pfister in Dahlenheim where Melanie Pfister, who heads the Divines d’Alsace group of women winegrowers, is making waves and winning prizes with her Riesling Grand Cru Engelberg and a distinguished Pinot Noir.

Insider’s tip

Vieux Ferrette in the deep south of Alsace is home to celebrated affineurs Bernard and Jean-François Antony, purveyors of fine cheese to Europe’s leading restaurants with a small shop and tiny, chalet-style restaurant. Here you can book a cheese feast (six courses or families of cheese and more than 20 different sorts) with spectacular matching wines from the formidable cellar.

Sue Style is a freelance wine, food and travel writer based in Alsace. This guide first appeared in the February 2017 issue of Decanter.

Warm, sunny weather throughout June and July has prompted early harvests in northern Europe with Champagne and Alsace the latest to get underway this week.

Grape pickers were preparing to get started in a handful of Champagne communes on 21 August, according to the region’s Comité Champagne.

Further east, Alsace winemakers were also preparing to begin picking grapes for Crémant sparkling wines from 22 August.

The news follows a record early harvest across the border in Germany, brought on largely by consecutive weeks of warm and sunny weather in June and July.

See also: Demand grows for California top names – new figures

In Alsace, some producers expressed concern to Le Monde newspaper that it might be difficult to find enough grape pickers in August.

However, the Alsace Winemakers’ Association (AVA) has set the later date of 3 September as the start of harvesting for still, appellation wines in the region.

In Champagne, it’s been a year of extremes to some extent. Growers and houses saw record winter rainfall, with 345mm falling from November 2017 to January 2018. That beats the previous high of 338mm set in 1965, according to the Comité.

A prolonged, cold winter then gave way to good weather through flowering in early June and temperature and sunshine hours well above long-term averages.

Optimism around the vintage was high, said the Comité, which has set yields as 10,800kg per hectare.

Yields are set with one eye on the market and there is an assumption that global Champagne sales in 2018 will not grow significantly versus 2017 in volume terms, albeit exports were expected to lead any increase.

In Germany, the first grapes for 2018 wines were picked for partially fermented ‘Federweisser’ in Rheinhessen on 6 August, following the country’s warmest April since statisticians began compiling figures.

Germany’s wine institute said that there was optimism around the potential harvest quality, although some growers had faced intense water stress and needed to irrigate on younger vines and vineyards on shallow soils, in particular.

Rain in August has offered welcome respite to some.

‘After the rain of the past days, the the berry size is increasing and maturation is clearly noticeable and very advanced for this time of the year,’ Dr Ernst Loosen, the celebrated producer in the Mosel area, told Decanter.com.

‘Before the rain the ripening process was somewhat “blocked” by the dryness.’

Loosen said that he expected to begin harvesting on 10 September, around one week earlier than normal, and added that grapes were looking ‘very, very good’ following initial analysis.

But uneven and rapid ripening could create an intensive harvest period.

‘The harvesting window will probably be rather small and we expect to do a lot of selection work, to separate the different ripeness levels of the bunches on the vines,’ Loosen said.

Anne Krebiehl MW, an expert on German wine, said that the heatwaves of recent weeks were seen as a boon in the most northerly areas. ‘Just look at the smiling faces of growers in Saale-Unstrut – or England,’ she said.

See also:

French wine harvest to rebound in 2018, say officials 

An underrated year like 2012 could mean some value buys, said our experts.

Originally published in Decanter magazine's March 2015 issue and now available online in full, exclusively for Premium members

• 84 wines tasted with two rated Outstanding

• The panel tasters were: Thierry Meyer, Marcel Orford-Williams & Eric Zweibel MS

While this was a good result, the terroir character of the individual grand crus did not sing, though some lesser-known names did stand out, says Thierry Meyer…

This 2012 Riesling tasting was very successful, with 82% of wines Recommended or higher.

Despite asking specifically for dry Riesling, some wines were still perceived as too sweet, but usually this was due to a lack of concentration, rather than an excessive amount of residual sugar (75% had less than 8g/l, which tastes dry when the acidity and the structure are powerful enough).

While most wines showed great varietal style, it was a disappointment that so many grand crus lacked specific terroir character and showed little complexity. These were great premium Rieslings and we would have expected the individual crus to be more distinctive. Of the 84 bottles we tasted, 60 were grand cru wines representing 33 different grand crus.

Scroll down to see the top wines from the panel tasting

Zinnkoepflé, Pfersigberg, Schlossberg and Schoenenbourg were the most represented; Schlossberg and Schoenenbourg getting the highest average scores.As mentioned, with 71% of wines tasted coming from one of the 51 Alsace Grand Cru ACs, two trends emerged.One is that producers are crafting grand cru Rieslings as premium Rieslings, amplifying the qualities of standard Riesling by providing more fruit, acidity, ripeness and density. These wines would be satisfactory with the grand cru name, without mentioning any terroir.

Quick link: View the tasting notes & scores from the panel tasting

On the other hand, some producers have decided to go for the full terroir character route, and produce wines of high complexity, character and ageability but sometimes challenging to drink. In a light vintage like 2012, these stood out.

Established houses like Paul Blanck, Bott-Geyl, Marc Kreydenweiss, René Muré, Louis Sipp and Zind-Humbrecht shone in our tasting, but also a new generation of young producers.

Winemakers to watch include Paul Fuchs (Henry Fuchs), Philippe Kubler (Paul Kubler), Lucas Rieffel (Rieffel), Frédéric Schmitt (François Schmitt), Samuel Tottoli (Kuentz-Bas) and Pascal Batot (Dopff au Moulin).

We had a few shocks. Some big names failed to shine (Trimbach, Hugel, Josmeyer, Schlumberger to name a few), as did well-known crus like Brand, Geisberg, Kastelberg, Rosacker and Sommerberg. In the latter case, it was hard to decide whether they were underperforming or whether lesser-known grand crus (that scored highly), such as Bruderthal, Frankstein, Steinert and Wineck-Schlossberg, were overperforming due to good producers.

Since wines from lesser-known terroirs are often priced moderately, these high-scoring examples should be great value.

The scores

84 wines tasted

Entry criteria: Producers and UK agents were invited to submit their dry Alsace Rieslings (100%) from 2012. One wine per producer was permitted.

Exceptional 0

Outstanding 2

Highly Recommended 10

Recommended 57

Commended 0

Fair 12

Poor 0

Faulty 3

The results

When reporting on a lesser vintage, expectations are naturally not as high as they could be, but our experts often find themselves pleasantly surprised, as this tasting proved.

‘2012 might be the perfect vintage for wine lovers to get to know Alsace Riesling,’ said Thierry Meyer.

Marcel Orford-Williams agreed, adding: ‘In a sense, 2012 is a handy vintage because the wines are ready now. Alsace has seen a string of great vintages – 2008, 2009 and 2010 – but none are ready to drink yet’. It could also be one where wine lovers can seek out value, as the wines will be less pricey than some of the more fêted vintages, noted Eric Zwiebel MS.

For lovers of austere and terroir-driven wines, 2012 may be a bit of a deception, Meyer explained. ‘Great Alsace Rieslings that taste of the soil tend to have a character that isn’t necessarily so Riesling-like. If consumers are looking for terroir in their 2012s they may be disappointed, as most of these grand cru wines were very varietal in style rather than terroir-origin.’

Orford-Williams found the generic entry-level Rieslings ‘homogenous and fairly simple but everything was more or less well-made’, but the grand crus were a step up.

With 51 grands crus to choose from, not to mention the many lieux-dits (named sites), Alsace is not an easy region to understand, and the tasters admitted they found it hard to identify specific characteristics for each grand cru. ‘There are too many grand crus,’ said Orford-Williams. Meyer agreed: ‘They have big limitations,’ he said. ‘The delineation is too big, often the yields are quite high, and sometimes the maturity isn’t there, so we end up with something that tastes like Riesling but not a grand cru, as with 2012.’

Of the 33 grand crus represented in this tasting, they felt about 10 showed some specific style, with Rangen, Brand, Kastelberg and Schoenenbourg the most distinctive. Meyer added: ‘This doesn’t mean other grands crus can’t produce great wines. It’s very challenging to judge whether or not a grand cru has potential because it depends on the grower’s effort – perhaps some of these underperforming grand crus are waiting to be revealed by good producers.’

The sweet/dry dilemma is also making Alsace difficult to sell. While most of the wines in this tasting had residual sugar levels below 6g/l, Meyer feels that the perception of sweetness is to do with the body of a wine. ‘It’s that some Rieslings don’t have enough concentration rather than having too much sugar. Most of the overly sweet wines were only 5-6g/l, while some had 10g/l and you didn’t taste it because of the acidity and weight.’

The sweetness is also partly due to the vintage, continued Meyer: ‘When you have a cold, late vintage, producers need to wait for the grapes to ripen and then you get botrytis because of the warm days, fresh nights and humidity. In 2012, none of the wines had botrytis so the sugar was really under control.’

The Alsace market has never been an easy one for UK consumers to understand, explained Orford-Williams. ‘This is partly due to the fact that 25 years ago Riesling was considered to be Germanic – people like my father would never touch Riesling because of that,’ he said. ‘Today, young wine lovers are drinking Riesling from Australia, New Zealand, wherever. Riesling is becoming a much more international grape variety, and suddenly Alsace is finding a bit of a niche in the Riesling market.’

Meyer was also feeling very positive about the future. ‘Convincing people to spend £30 to £50 on a dry Alsace Riesling is quite challenging. But look at Burgundy – £40 is considered a bargain! Alsace terroir is becoming a great discovery for wine lovers and it’s getting more visibility. Also, because there’s no oak, people are starting to understand better the complexity of the acidity.’

Our tasters each pick their top 3 wines from the tasting:

Thierry Meyer

Meyer is the DWWA Regional Chair for Alsace. He was born and raised in the region and began writing about wine in 1999. He founded L’Oenothèque Alsace in 2006 and launched the website Oenoalsace.com, later organising a structured programme of Alsace wine classes and dinners. Meyer was contributing editor of Bettane & Desseauve Guide des Vins de France from 2007 to 2011 and in 2014 headed up the Alsace Master-level education program for the French Wine Society.

‘With 82% of wines Recommended and above, the tasting showed that 2012 is a very good and homogeneous vintage for Alsace Riesling. Past tastings of young 2012s in bottle showed a lack of character, yet here the selection was much better with good depth and focus on the palate.

‘Many wines were easy to drink, with clean citrus and green fruit aromas, and a sharp, fresh, dry palate. The grand cru terroirs showed at their best, as they are already enjoyable to drink now. However, all the wines will benefit from three to four years’ cellaring and will drink well over the next 10 years.

‘Several grands crus (Rangen, Brand, Kastelberg and Schoenenberg) stood out, showing complexity, depth and focus, with terroir character. The style of Alsace Riesling can be surprising to those who haven’t tried it before, however, so be careful before rushing to the Outstandings or Highly Recommendeds, as they may not taste like Rieslings you have tasted from elsewhere. Having said that, 2012 – approachable as it is – would be a good vintage with which to introduce yourself to Alsace Riesling.’

Marc Kreydenweiss, Le Château Riesling, Grand Cru Kastelberg 2012

Exceptional schist terroir character which eliminates any notion of Riesling. The typical tannic structure of the Kastelberg brings a racy style. For me, one of the greatest Alsace grand cru Rieslings of the 2012 vintage. 98/100 Drink 2018-2027

Paul Kubler, Breitenberg Riesling 2012

Coming from a sandstone soil mixed with some limestone, the wine is bone dry and firm with a great saltiness. With citrus and smoky aromas, this is a great Riesling with more terroir character than many grand cru-labelled siblings. Would be great with smoked fish or eel. 93 Drink 2015-2025

Louis Sipp, Riesling, Grand Cru Kirchberg de Ribeauvillé 2012

This powerful Riesling from a complex soil of limestone, marl and sandstone is a perfect 2012 to cellar. White flowers and smoke aromas are still discreet. It shows good complexity and a full-bodied, robust structure. 90 Drink 2016-2027

Marcel Orford-Williams

Orford-Williams joined The Wine Society as a buyer in 1986, where he has become a specialist for Alsace, Champagne and southern France, including the Rhône, Languedoc-Roussillon, Beaujolais and the southwest. In recognition of his services to French wine, Orford-Williams was made Chevalier de l’Ordre du Mérite Agricole.

‘It has always been my belief that Alsace is capable of producing wines that can rival the very best from anywhere. This tasting showed a healthy number of delicious Rieslings in many different styles that would give pleasure over the next few years. Moreover 2012 is just the right sort of vintage for easy drinking, and you can approach these now.

‘But of course, Riesling is one of the world’s greatest white grape varieties, and what is remarkable is its ability to adapt to different soil types and expositions, and produce wines with highly distinctive nuances.

‘Alsace famously benefits from a great variety of soil types from volcanic to sandstone by way of schists and limestone and I thought that in this tasting the wines clearly showed their origin with, of course, differences not only in taste but also maturity. Are people ready to taste a Schlossberg Grand Cru against a Rangen or Schoenenbourg? Absolutely!’

Domaine Zind-Humbrecht, Clos St Urbain Riesling, Grand Cru Rangen de Thann 2012

Great wines are rare and depend on a great terroir and the ability of a great grower, like Olivier Humbrecht, to express it. Wines from Rangen stand out, almost overwhelmingly so. The cru is based on volcanic soils and the angle of slope is dramatic. The wines always have intensity and incredible depth; this was glorious. 96 Drink 2017-2030

Louis Sipp, Riesling, Grand Cru Kirchberg de Ribeauvillé 2012

Ribeauvillé is at the heart of Alsace and boasts France’s oldest co-op and many fine estates. I especially liked Sipp’s Riesling from the fine Kirchberg vineyard. 93 Drink 2016-2027

Jean Becker, Riesling, Grand Cru Mandelberg 2012

The Mandelberg vineyard in Mittelwihr points south like so many others, and sometimes I find the wines just a little too showy for their own good. But I adored the attack and brightness Becker gave to this wine. 93 Drink 2017-2026

Eric Zwiebel MS

Zwiebel is cellar master at Summer Lodge, a country house hotel in Dorset. Born in Alsace, he worked as a sommelier for Le Pavillon Elysée Lenôtre in Paris. Following this, he moved to London to broaden his knowledge and two years later, in 2001, became a Master Sommelier. In 2004, he was named Best Sommelier of the UK, which he followed up with third place in the Best Sommelier of Europe final in 2006 and 2008. He reached the finals in the Best Sommelier of the World in 2007 and placed 4th at the 2013 competition in Tokyo.

‘I felt this was a very good result overall, with a number of excellent Rieslings – thanks to the producers for sending them in.

‘For me, there wasn’t enough difference between the basic Alsace AC wines and those with a specific lieu-dit to make me think that a new tier in the appellation hierarchy is deserved.

‘Looking at the 2012 vintage, it’s a little bit unlucky to be stuck in the middle of such great years as 2010 and 2013, where the fruit and acidity is much more pure and vivacious. The 2012s are more rounded in character, with less acidity, so it it will be a vintage to drink earlier. Even so, perhaps some of these wines need a bit more time to express themselves fully, as with many great terroirs in the world.’

Domaine Zind-Humbrecht, Clos St Urbain Riesling, Grand Cru Rangen de Thann 2012

A great classic from volcanic soil. The texture was oily, deep and intense with a nose of mango, honey blossom and bruised apple. The spectrum of this wine was a perfect balance of power and complexity. 96 Drink 2017-2030

Charles Sparr, Riesling, Grand Cru Schoenenbourg 2012

Again, a great terroir at its best, here dominated by gypsum. Texture with concentration, a full body and a long finish. The nose had some touches of mushrooms, white pepper and cinnamon with passion fruit. The finish was juicy, vibrant with a saline finish. 95 Drink 2017-2027

Gérard Neumeyer, Riesling, Grand Cru Bruderthal 2012

A pleasant expression of marl and limestone terroir. The palate was full of freshness balanced by a rounded mouthfeel. On the palate there was a combination of zesty pink grapefruit and lemon as well as green apples and pears. The finish was sharp, precise and long with a juicy pink grapefruit finish – quite vivacious. 90 Drink 2017-2026

Alsace Riesling: the facts

Climate Semi-continental with cold winters and hot, dry summers.

Production 18% of total French still white AC wine production comes from Alsace. At just over 20% (3,350 hectares), Riesling is Alsace’s most widely planted grape, followed by Gewurztraminer and Pinot Gris.

Appellations

Alsace AC 805,540 hl (72%) . Minimum 10% ABV, maximum 13% (including chaptalisation) and maximum yield of 80hl/ha. This rises to 10.5%–13.5% ABV and a maximum yield of 75hl/ha if naming a specific communal appellation or lieu-dit.

Crémant d’Alsace AC 270,062 hl (24%)

Alsace Grands Cru AC 44,780 hl (4%). Minimum 12% ABV, maximum 14%. Maximum yield of 55hl/ha

Alsace Riesling: know your vintages

2013 Challenging vintage. Complicated growing season and harvest. Choose from the best producers.

2012 Very good ‘classic’ vintage. Rieslings marked by freshness and vivacity. Drink 2015-2030.

2011 Good vintage, with some Rieslings lacking focus. Drink 2015-2020.

2010 Excellent vintage of both vivacity and opulence. Drink 2017-2030.

2009 Very good. Lacks the tension of 2010 or 2008, but succulent and rich. Drink 2016-2020, the best to 2025.

2008 Excellent vintage of precision and finesse. Drink 2016-2025.

Top scoring Alsace Riesling 2012 from the panel tasting:

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Stephen Brook tastes all three vintages of Hugel's new single-vineyard Riesling, Schoelhammer, including the new 2009 release...

Grand cru or not grand cru?

Ever since Alsace established its grand cru system, some of its leading producers, such as Hugel, Trimbach and Leon Beyer, have resisted it, refusing to bottle their wines under the grand cru labels to which they are entitled.

There are various reasons for this, including an underlying scepticism about the system’s validity, and the established success of their own brand names.

Scroll down for Stephen’s Schoelhammer tasting notes

So, although the respected house of Hugel has substantial holdings in grand cru Schoenenbourg, its top Rieslings have never borne the name of the vineyard.

When I asked winemaker Marc Hugel over a recent lunch why this was so, he replied: ‘We own 14 parcels of Riesling in Schoenenbourg and have always vinified them separately. Some of them have always stood out in our in-house blind tastings, and we eventually decided to bottle these outstanding wines on their own.’

Schoelhammer

That is how Schoelhammer Riesling came into existence. It is, the Hugel team insists, not just a wine from grand cru Schoenenbourg, but a specific selection of organically farmed dry Riesling from within the site. In short, it’s a ‘grand cru plus’.

Moreover, Hugel produce a second Schoenenbourg wine from younger vines, mostly grown on marl and clay soils. This is known as Grossi Laüe, an Alsatian dialect term equivalent to the German ‘Gross Lage’ (great site).

The plots reserved for Schoelhammer consist of 0.5 ha on the mid-slope of Schoenenbourg, facing south and southeast at an elevation of 290 metres.

The wine is aged in large casks and also in stainless steel – as volumes are small, the ageing of the wine has to be on a pragmatic basis, as it’s unlikely that a single cask will exactly match the volume produced in any vintage. The wine is bottled in August or September.

The tasting

The launch of the Schoelhammer 2009 on 14th June at Galvin at Windows, Park Lane, gave everybody present the opportunity to compare all three vintages – 2007, 2008, and 2009.

They showed distinct vintage characters, and all effortlessly accompanied a rich and meaty fillet of stone bass with caponata and lightly battered baby squid.

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Grands Crus on limestone, granite, marl and volcanic soils all produce differing styles of wine, but is there more to it than this? Stephen Brook investigates, exclusively for Premium members...

In creating its 51 grands crus, a process which began in 1975, Alsace was following the proud French tradition of identifying its best terroirs.

This would seem to give consumers a valuable guide to a wine’s quality, but it’s more complicated than that.

Scroll down to see Stephen’s ratings on Riesling grand cru wines from this tasting

Sticking points

Alsace is home to numerous grape varieties, and so a potentially superb site for Riesling may be less suited to Pinot Gris, for example, due to its terroir or exposition.

Additionally, it is widely acknowledged that the awarding of grand cru status was rather generous – when boundaries were drawn, political considerations inevitably came into play.

As Burgundy lovers know well, it is possible to make wretched wine from a great site. A producer can over-crop or vinify clumsily, so a grand cru or single vineyard name on a label is no guarantee of quality on its own; it needs to be allied to the name of a respected producer with a good track record.

Vineyard origins

Fortunately, instances of this combination are plentiful enough in Alsace. For example, Zind-Humbrecht, which owns one third of the volcanic Rangen, has undeniably helped firm up this site’s reputation as a sensational grand cru.

Riesling reflects its vineyard origins with more precision and nuance than most grape varieties in Alsace.

A recent eye-opening tasting in London of mostly grand cru Rieslings allowed comparisons between wines that could claim to be the region’s outstanding expressions of this inexhaustible grape. Almost 60 wines were presented, each bottle colour-coded to indicate the soil type.

But it’s not always so clear-cut. One celebrated producer intoned, ‘limestone gives more horizontal wines, granite more vertical wines.’ Sounds good, but does it mean anything?

This tasting demonstrated that, as in Burgundy, each producer – without necessarily overriding terroir characteristics – can impose a certain style and balance.

The vineyard remains the crucial element, but the full picture is far more complex.

A picture of terroir

Limestone

Great purity and finesse.

Granite

The wines from Schlossberg were very consistent in character, with their linear structure, purity, and raciness. It may help that the proprietors of Schlossberg vines include some of Alsace’s greatest names.

Boxler’s wine from another granite vineyard, Sommerberg, showed a similar personality.

Volcanic

Rangen produced fiery, energetic wines from Zind-Humbrecht and Schoffitt.

Ostertag’s Muenchberg, however – another volcanic grand cru – was more restrained, tangy and mineral, and less explosive than the Rangen wines.

Marl

For Schoenenbourg, Jean-Christophe Bott of Bott-Geyl explains: ‘The main soil is marl, but it’s geologically complex. It’s a heavy soil that gives wines of depth, weight, and complexity, but with freshness too.’

But for Jean-Louis Trapet of Domaine Trapet, Schoenenbourg offers ‘fine, elegant Rieslings, and because of the slow ripening here the wines are never too opulent.’

Indeed, their wines are very different. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, since there are 53ha of vines here, with varying elevations, expositions, and micro-terroirs.

Stephen’s top Alsace terroirs for Riesling:

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• Jane Anson: Alsace is finally gettings its act together

Plan a wine and walking holiday...

Alsace wine route – ask Decanter

John Freeman, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, asks: Later this year, my wife and I are looking to do a walking holiday in Alsace which would also take us through the vineyards.

Can you recommend some tour operators who are reputable and have a good track record? And ideally, when is the best time to go?

Sue Style replies: Alsace is a great choice for a vineyard walking holiday. There’s a large network of well-signposted walking trails that criss-cross the vineyards, more wineries than you can shake a walking stick at and delicious food to greet you at the end of the day.

Top 10 Alsace restaurants

There are plenty of vineyard tours, many of them self-guided itineraries with maps and instructions.

Your luggage will be transported from place to place, so you can visit wineries and taste wines without having to worry about taking the wheel afterwards.

My favourite months are September and October – temperatures are often deliciously warm and the vineyards ablaze with reddish-golden colours.

Tour operators offering Alsace vineyard walks include: ATG Oxford, Inntravel and Arblaster & Clarke.

Sue Style is a wine and food writer based in Alsace. Editing for Decanter.com by Eleanor Douglas.

• Read more notes and queries every month in Decanter magazine. Subscribe to the latest issue here

• Got a question for Decanter’s experts? Email us: editor@decanter.com or on social media with #askDecanter

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Live like royalty in France’s finest wine regions…

Andrew Jefford salutes a region facing - and embracing - change.

After last week’s jaunt around Burgundy, I accompanied students on a five-day tour through Alsace. There were surprises in store.

Generation Grand Cru

Here are some words I never thought I’d hear – at least at this famous address in Ribeauvillé. “I’m speaking a lot about Grand Cru,” said Anne Trimbach. “It’s the way to go to understand the beauty of Alsace. I know it’s a bit complicated, but it can only help Alsace. We have such a diversity of soils and it’s the best way to understand that.” And Premier Cru? “Let’s hope it happens.”

Wow! Dial back a decade and a half; I was sitting across the table from her great-uncle Hubert. “We are opposed,” he had told me then, when I asked about Grand Cru. “There is not enough discipline; yields are too high; quality is questionable; prices are ridiculous and criminal … This is a political time-bomb. No, no and no.” Hubert is, happily, still with us; he’s in the office every week. What, I asked Anne, did Hubert make of this change of heart? “With age,” she said, “the older generation gets more mellow; he accepted it well. My father worked on him for a few years.”

Ah … Anne’s father is Pierre Trimbach, the company’s winemaker; it turns out he had been a secret enthusiast for many years, nursing a dream of a collection of Grand Cru Rieslings. “We never do a revolution here,” smiled Anne. “We just evolve.” There is indeed now a Trimbach Grand Cru Collection, featuring the company’s new purchases in Schlossberg and Geisberg; I wouldn’t bet against Clos St Hune (from Rosacker) joining them one day, though there are publically no plans for this as yet.

It’s a rout: fellow long-term refusniks Hugel and Léon Beyer are moving in the same direction. Hugel has its Grossi Laüe series (the equivalent of ‘Grand Cru’ in Alsatian dialect) while its Schoenenbourg wines have, I believe, been submitted for Grand Cru approval from 2015; while Marc Beyer said that his company also intended to use Grand Cru in future where relevant. I applaud the fact that the region’s merchant grandees are finally getting behind the Grand Cru system for their domain wines. They will benefit; the system will flourish … and, of course, economics will dictate that a hierarchy of Grands Crus and Grand Cru producers will take shape. Thus the market will meet the challenge that the legislators dodged.

By the way, Anne Trimbach also pointed out how much more motivated and engaged young vineyard workers are in Alsace today compared to a decade or two ago when such labour was “just a job”. Surely the journey towards expression, nuance and an understanding of site represented by the Grand Cru system has something to do with this?

Sec means sec

The obligatory labelling of dry Alsace wines as ‘Sec’ is on its way. I asked Marc Beyer (who says he produces fine dry Alsace wines “for the gastronomy orchestra”) if he was happy about this. “No,” he replied, with pained dignity. “It should not be necessary. Alsace wine should be dry.” This was also what Marc Hugel had in mind when he called the coming scheme “a joke” last year.

I think consumers will greatly welcome it. Remember, though, that the use of Demi-Sec, Moelleux and Doux will be optional, in contrast to the obligatory ‘Sec’. When I asked producers if they were thinking of using these other terms, there was a shaking of heads, especially about Demi-Sec, which was felt to sound vaguely pejorative. Admittedly the best solution of all would have been to adopt an ‘index’ scale to indicate relative sweetness graphically, as used by Zind-Humbrecht and others – but this proved too complex. ‘Sec’ is still better than nothing.

Cork blues

Thanks to Decanter’s Alsace specialist Thierry Meyer, my students and I had the chance to enjoy a dinner of older Alsace wines at the exceptional Taverne Alsacienne in Ingersheim. The wines came in part from Thierry’s own L’Oenothèque Alsace and partly from the local Confrérie de St Etienne, so they had been well stored. There were some stars (notably a graceful and limpid 1983 Cuvée Frédéric Emile from Trimbach, a meaty and balsam-like 1971 Tokay Réserve Exceptionnelle from Kuentz-Bas and a truly Tokaji-like 1990 Riesling Clos St Landelin Sélection des Grains Nobles from René Muré) but the manifold failings of cork suppliers between 1960 and 1990 cost us dearly, with five corked bottles out of 18 and others oxidatively spoiled.

There has been some movement on closures in Alsace: both the Barthelmé brothers at Albert Mann and the Blanck cousins at Paul Blanck use screwcaps for some of their range as do co-ops like Beblenheim, and Marc Hugel says that his decision to switch to Diam corks was “the most clever decision I took in my life … The nightmare is now behind us.”

My view is that all Alsace Riesling, Muscat, Sylvaner, Pinot Blanc, Edelzwicker and Gentil wines would be best bottled under screwcap. The evolution of these Alsace whites in time, after all, relates to a kind of expansion, refinement and modulation of their fruit characters and their intricate fruit perfumes: such wines benefit most from the fruit-and-scent preservation which screwcap delivers.

By contrast, I’d chose Diam corks for the texturally richer (and sometimes frankly tannic) Pinot Gris and Gewürztraminer, where the developmental trajectory is closer to that of the classic oaked white: a broadening of flavour and a metamorphosis of fruit towards vinosity and structural power, accompanied by creamy, nutty, mushroomy, truffle-like or meaty forms of richness. Clean, reliable cork favours this kind of evolution.

Pinot breakthrough?

Pinot production in Alsace remains a secondary specialism (around 10% of Alsace production is red), but several producers mentioned how climate change is making ambitious Pinot production increasingly viable. The 2015 vintage, too, broke new barriers for Alsace’s Pinot Noir producers. If you’ve never tried Alsace Pinot Noir, 2015 is the vintage to start: here are a couple of notes, followed by a selection of the rest of the week’s outstanding bottles.

Pinot Noir

Léon Beyer, Comtes d’Eguisheim, Pinot Noir 2015

Only the third vintage of the Comtes d’Eguisheim Pinot produced (after 2003 and 2009), this has poised, billowing fresh-fruit scents with vivacious redcurrant and smoky cherry on the palate: structured, deep, graceful and articulate, a complete success (and made with 100% whole bunch, too). 92 points / 100

Albert Mann, Grand ‘H’, Pinot Noir 2015

From 40-year-old vines in Hengst, and made with 50 per cent whole bunch material in this vintage, this wine is deep red in colour, with dense red fruits and plenty of meaty richness. On the palate, the wine is deep, dense, ringing, structured and vivid: more Gevrey in style than Chambolle, with meaty flesh and ripe tannins. I’ve never tasted a better Alsace Pinot Noir than this. 94

Whites

Blanck, Grand Cru Schlossberg, Riesling 2014

Pure, fresh, planty and pungent scents, and a scything palate packed with bracing limey fruit. Intense, pure, balanced and complete. Philippe Blanck also showed us the 2008 to illustrate some of the ageing potential of this wine. The aromas had modulated to talc and orange flower, but the palate was still racy, delicate and fine. 93

Albert Boxler, Grand Cru Sommerberg ‘D’ (Dudenstein), Riesling 2015

Jean Boxler’s 2015 wines maintain his dauntingly high standards. The Sommerberg ‘D’, from a small parcel containing old vines planted after 1945, is a masterful wine of great intensity, complexity and energy: almost explosive in the mouth. It is both opulent and vivacious: a typically Alsatian combination, but rarely realised with the drama and clarity of expression that you find here. 96

Cave Coopérative de Ribeauvillé, Grand Cru Altenberg de Bergheim, Riesling 2013

White-green in colour; orchard fruits and spring woodland scents; pure, precise, clean and dry, yet long and structured, too, from this sunny clay-soiled site. The proof that co-operatives can make excellent Grand Cru wines, too. 90

Schoffit, Clos St Theobald, Grand Cru Rangen, Pinot Gris 2010

Aromatic creamy softness, then vivid, smoky and rich on the palate. Dense, thick-textured and complex, with unusually vivid acidity to balance out the 37 g/l of sugar; a saline edge; then a long, almost malty finish. Grand wine from the region’s most astonishing single site. 94

Trimbach, Cuvée des Seigneurs de Ribeauvillé, Gewurztraminer 2011

A richly dry Gewurz based on fruit from from Muhlfurst (this Hunawihr vineyard close to Rosacker is rumoured to be in pole position for Premier Cru status) and Rosacker itself: elegant, fine-lined and almost minty fresh in scent, with sumptuous, creamy flavours which merely hint at rose petal. Proof that fine Gewurztraminer can be restrained and elegant. 92 

Trimbach, Clos Ste Hune, Riesling 2011

Clos St Hune is an unassuming, gently sloping Hunawihr hillside vineyard with no wall around it and no church at the top of the hill (the famous label, of course, portrays an elegant fantasy). The scents are quiet but evocative: an apple orchard; wet stones. Perfumed and lush on the palate, yet stony and long, too, with the apple here modulating towards apricot. Refreshing, enticing, supremely drinkable as well as intellectually satisfying. 94

Weinbach, Muscat 2016

There is no ‘simple’ Alsace wine which is harder to make well than Muscat. The Weinbach version (a blend of 70 per cent Ottonel with 30 per cent Muscat d’Alsace) is deftly exemplary, with admirable freshness and purity of scent and with pristine, fresh, lifted flavours, neither grassy nor catty. Together with Riesling, Muscat is the wine which perfectly illustrates the northern side of Alsace’s nature (compared to the region’s exotic ‘sotherners’: Pinot Gris and Gewurztraminer – at which, by the way, Weinbach also excels). 91

Zind Humbrecht, Heimbourg, Pinot Gris 2013

A brilliant dry Pinot Gris (just 6.9 /l residual sugar) which shows how this variety in Alsace can, in the right hands, acquire the density and force of personality of a red wine. It’s still pale, but the haunting aromas allude to meat, grain, smoke and both fresh and dried orchard fruits. On the palate the wine is salty, rich, packed with almost every fruit essence you can think of: an astonishing roar from this west-facing limestone vineyard. 95 

… and three quotations to finish

“To make a litre of Schlossberg, you need a litre of sweat.” Jacky Barthelmé, Albert Mann

“The best wine is the one you take a second glass of.” Marc Beyer, Léon Beyer

“Wines are like children: you need to watch them closely, but not to interefere all the time.” Catherine Faller, Weinbach

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Alsace isn't just about the grand crus - there are also plenty of delicious wines under £20 that deserve a spot in your wine rack. Here's a few to get you started.

The unique history of Alsace, to-ing and fro-ing between German and French control, has left its legacy. It’s a French region with a uniquely Teutonic feel – even the wine bottles share the distinct shape of their German cousins across the Rhine.

More than 90% of wines produced in Alsace are white, ranging from lean, mineral Riesling to perfumed, exotic Gewürztraminer. Decanter’s Jane Anson believes that Alsace should be a natural homeland for terroir-driven white wines in France.

Here are some of our top recommendations for everyday wines that won’t break the bank.

Delicious Alsace white wines under £20 :

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Decanter's Sarah Kemp gets a first taste of the Hugel Schoelhammer 2008.

The 12^th and 13^th generation of the Hugel family were in London this week to launch their second vintage of Schoelhammer, the 2008 vintage.

Winemaker Marc Hugel was joined by his nephew, the late Etienne Hugel’s son, Jean-Frédéric, showed the Schoelhammer 2008, of which only 2,534 bottles have been made. There are no half bottles.

Jean-Frédéric said that the Schoelhammer Riesling was 80% terroir and 20% grape variety, the inverse of Hugel’s classic Riesling. ‘This is the Montrachet of Alsace,’ he said, referencing a Burgundy star.

With the passion for which his father was renown, he said that in 2008 ‘we had a cool July and August followed by an Indian summer which led to a long ripening of the grapes’.

2018 update: Hugel Schoelhammer: The first three vintages compared

Schoelhammer comes from the heart of the historic Schoenenbourg vineyard, which overlooks Riquewihr. It is made from 30 south-facing rows, mid-slope and was the first Hugel parcel to be organically farmed.

First taste: Hugel Schoelhammer 2008

Price: To be confirmed

Pricing and stockist details will be updated shortly. The wine is currently being distributed to stockists.

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Wine Legend: Hugel, Riesling Selection de Grains Nobles, Alsace, France 1976

What makes this wine legendary..?

Andrew Jefford takes a look at Alsace’s competitive wine-cooperative scene, as part of his search for the best wine co-op in France...

My search for France’s greatest co-operative continues. As the train draws in at Colmar, though, it all begins to get rather difficult — for the best of reasons.

There is, in my opinion, no French region with a more consistent or more attractive co-operative wine offer than Alsace

Co-operatives account for about 41.5 per cent of Alsace’s annual wine sales – which is much less than in the South of France (in Corsica it’s over 60 per cent and in Languedoc-Roussillon over 70 per cent). Historically, though, the co-operative movement is immensely significant in Alsace – and in terms of quality, too, there are many contenders in the frame. There is, in my opinion, no French region with a more consistent or more attractive co-operative wine offer than Alsace.

A little history first, though. The winter of 1846-47 was a terrible one, as students of Irish history will remember. It was the sufferings of the rural poor in Germany that winter, though, which inspired a young Rhineland mayor from Westerwald called Friedrich Raiffeisen to develop both rural co-operatives and credit unions over the following decades. Following the Franco-Prussian war, Alsace was annexed (in 1871) to the Germany Empire – and lost its French markets overnight. Growers consequently struggled and some, inspired by Raiffeisen’s ideas, formed co-operatives, that of Ribeauvillé (founded in 1895) being the first. You could consider it France’s original wine cooperative, too – though since Alsace wasn’t in France at the time, the accolade is customarily given to the growers of the Pays d’Ensérune co-operative near Béziers (founded in 1901). Co-operatives in the Jura (like the Fruitière Vinicole d’Arbois, founded in 1906) were also off to an early start.

Nowadays there are 15 co-operatives in Alsace, and they vary in scale. The giant is Bestheim (1,336 ha), which accounts for between 12 and 15 per cent of Alsace production on its own. Wolfberger is substantial too (1,200 ha), with a 48-ha spread of Grand Cru land (including Rangen de Thann) at one end, and with a significant business in eaux de vie and liqueurs for the catering industry at the other; while the ‘Alliance Alsace’ between wine specialist Turckheim (400 ha) and Crémant specialist Cave du Roi Dagobert (1,000 ha) is also commercially significant.

Pfaffenheim owns a cluster of brands (including Dopff & Irion) in addition to its members’ 270 ha, while Beblenheim has some great holdings among its 300 ha (with a further 40 ha at associate Molsheim); Jean Geiler (the Ingersheim co-operative) has ten Grands Crus among its 390 ha. Then comes Ribeauvillé itself (260 ha), Hunawihr (200 ha), Cleebourg (189 ha) and Vieil Armand (140 ha around Guebwiller, Cernay and Soultz). Most would say that Alsace’s co-operative stars are Turckheim, Beblenheim and Ribeauvillé (which was declared ‘Cooperative of the Year’ in 2016 by Revue de Vin de France), and the results of a comparative tasting I undertook in the region bear this out (see below).

Why, though, are co-operative standards in Alsace high? Competition drives up quality, of course; if one or two achieve outstanding results, others are forced to compete. Alsace’s successful Wine Route (the oldest and most popular in France) brings visitors and direct sales to cooperative addresses, so it’s in co-operative interests to maximise quality and presentation. Less obvious, perhaps, is the fact that Alsace has no IGP alternative to its regional (and varietally articulated) AOP. The fact that everyone in Alsace must produce appellation wine is in itself an impetus to quality. Finally, the generosity of the Grand Cru circumscriptions – whatever one may think of this in other respects — does at least allow the region’s co-operative wine producers the chance to compete with leading private growers at the top of the Alsace tree, as many do with distinction.

Co-operative excellence from Alsace

Gewurztraminer Vieilles Vignes, Heimberger, Cave de Beblenheim 2014

Roses and cold cream make for a classic Gewurztraminer scent, while the palate, too, is perfumed and nuanced, fresh and floral. An ideal Gewurztraminer for a blind tasting with friends – or as a talking-point aperitif. 89 points / 100

Riesling , Kleinfels, Cave de Beblenheim 2015

This deftly crafted Riesling (available from the cellar at 6.80 euros and from Waitrose in the UK at £9.99) showed very well against its peers: forest-fresh lime and coriander scents and a crunchy, stony, zesty flavour. Spot on. 90

Pinot Gris, Classic, Bestheim 2015

Ripely green, fresh, lively, full of zest and energy, with a delicious fleshy fullness becoming apparent in the mid-palate. 88

Pinot Noir, Cuvée 1926, Jean Geiler 2015

Pinot Noir is too finicky to be a particular co-operative strength, but this effort from Ingersheim (grown, in fact, in Turckheim on granite soils) has a big billowing balloon of fresh cherry fruit – delicious value at under 11 euros. 89

Riesling Grand Cru, Osterberg, Cave de Ribeauvillé 2010

This is a fine Riesling which carries its six years with aplomb, and which could mature effortlessly for at least as long again: mellow, lush scents of wet stone and mushroom, after which the tautness and tension of the vintage comes as a surprise: pungent, pithy, classical. Ribeauvillé’s Osterberg (this Grand Cru is one of the two sources for Trimbach’s Cuvée Frédéric-Emile) is well-worth following. 92

Clos du Zahnacker, Cave de Ribeauvillé 2013

The 1.24 ha of the tiny Clos du Zahnacker lies within Osterberg; it’s wholly owned by the Ribeauvillé co-operative and is planted with Riesling, Pinot Gris and Gewurztraminer, all of which are co-fermented for this wine. The nose is both fresh and creamy – orchard fruits, with a spoonful of custard. On the palate, this blend is brisk and bright, pure and complex. Riesling emerges as the soloist, with backing vocals from the other two varieties. 91

Pinot Blanc, Granit de la Vallée, Cave de Turckheim 2015

This Pinot Blanc, from the granite soils of the Munster valley, is a different proposition from the smilingly grapey Pinot Blanc norm: the scents are almost smoky and spicy, while the flavours are pert, brisk, stone-bright. Great use of raw materials here. 89

Sylvaner Vieilles Vignes, Cave de Turckheim 2013

Sylvaner is an understated, chewy, food-friendly northern white, and Turckheim’s Vieilles Vignes version makes a fine Alsace reference: fresh, quietly intriguing scents, hinting at girolle mushrooms, veal stock and vanilla, with sappy, vegetal-marrowy flavours. 89

Gewurztraminer Grand Cru, Brand, Cave de Turckheim 2013

Turckheim has an outstanding record with Gewurztraminer, and this Grand Cru wine from the warm site of Brand has perfumes of billowing, unctuous classicism and beguilingly generous flavours, too, its sweetness (39 g/l) ballasted with something denser and stonier behind. 91

Pinot Gris Grand Cru, Hengst, Wolfberger 2014

Rich orchard fruits lend a fatty-earthy richness to this wine from the southeast-facing Hengst (a sheltered, warm site), and it summarises what Alsace can do for this variety, so often neutral elsewhere. Chunky, deep, full and fleshy on the palate, too, with a little finishing tension. 90

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The facts

Bottles produced 5,500

Composition 100% Riesling

Yield about 15 hl/ha

Alcohol 12.8%

Release price 130 French Francs

Price today £209 (found on a Dutch restaurant wine list)

Hugel, Riesling Sgn 1976 is a legend because…

Sweet wines from Alsace had probably been made for decades, if not centuries, but it was the Hugels who from 1865 developed the styles that later became known as Vendange Tardive and Sélection de Grains Nobles.

The latter is produced solely from grapes affected by noble rot and with a potential alcohol of 15.2%, although in practice the sugar levels are considerably higher. The 1976 vintage proved ideal for these styles, and the Hugels produced quite substantial quantities of them, from Pinot Gris and Gewurztraminer as well as Riesling, and made them commercially available, rather than keeping them as wines for special occasions within the family.

They were rapidly recognised for their outstanding quality, and the SGN style was well and truly established.

Looking back

Hugel was founded in 1639 in Riquewihr and has remained in family hands ever since. In 1976 the company was run by the much admired Johnny Hugel, who in addition to maintaining high standards at the firm, acted less formally as a kind of ambassador for the region as a whole. As the major producer of Vendange Tardive and SGN styles, Hugel played a major role in laying down the regulations for these styles. These were promulgated in 1984, though subsequently revised on two occasions. Until 1971 what is now known as SGN was labelled, German-style, as Beerenauslese. Riesling was, and remains, the scarcest of SGN wines, as the variety succumbs to botrytis less easily than Pinot Gris or Gewurztraminer. Thus in 1985 Hugel produced a mere 250 litres of Riesling SGN, and subsequent vintages were 1988, 1995, and 1996, as the company only releases such wines when its own high standards are met. At Hugel and indeed many other producers, the legal minimum must weight for SGN is rarely considered sufficient.

The vintage

As in the rest of France, 1976 produced an exceptionally hot summer, but Alsace’s mostly white grapes benefited from occasional storms that refreshed the fruit and aided ripening. The harvest began on 20 September, and Riesling enjoyed particular success in this year. Hugel picked this SGN on 20 October.

The terroir

Like Trimbach and some other Alsace producers, Hugel has never played the grand cru card, even though it owns substantial vineyards within two of them, Sporen and Schoenenbourg. The Riesling SGN generally comes from its best parcels within Schoenenbourg, which has a soil mostly composed of marl and gypsum, plus gravel, sandstone, and fossil limestone. This is a very large site for a grand cru, with 53 hectares in Riquewihr, and is inevitably uneven in quality. (This is the main reason the Hugels are reluctant to identify the site on the label, since they don’t want to validate lesser wines produced by other growers from parcels inferior to their own.)

The wine

The art of making great SGN is practised almost entirely in the vineyard, where individual berries with the right amount of concentration by botrytis are picked one by one. The baskets are then taken to the winery for pressing, and after settling for a few hours, this must is fermented in either vats or barrels at a temperature no higher than 24ºC. The 1976 fermented quietly until 26 July 1977, when it was racked. Every time Johnny Hugel walked past the cask where the wine was stored, recalls Etienne Hugel, he removed his hat. Once the wine was bottled, his good-humoured reverence was seen to be fully justified.

The reaction

In 1989, Michael Broadbent described the wine as ‘buttercup yellow; grapey, ripe, fragrant; medium-sweet though rich with a marvellous uplift of acidity’€™. By 2002 his assessment was: ‘€˜now a brassy touch to its old gold, but very bright; perfectly harmonious, creamy nose; very sweet, lovely texture, peachy flavour, complete, well balanced.’€™ Steven Spurrier recalls: ‘€˜Johnny Hugel told me that each year he ‘€œplaced the bar a little higher’€ in what the profile of an SGN should be. With the 1976 he surpassed substantially even his own high standards.’€™

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Andrew Jefford walks up hallowed slopes in Alsace.

This was a pilgrimage, a treat and a challenge.

Pilgrimage? Perhaps the word is excessive, but every time I taste great wines from the Rangen de Thann, Alsace’s most southerly Grand Cru, they strike me a culmination of everything that wine lovers revere about terroir, and why they accord it so much importance. They are, in other words, not only very fine wines, but their scents and flavours are marked by an otherness for which ‘mineral’ seems the inescapable term. They are also very deeply coloured compared to other wines pressed and made from the same varieties in the same way, but from different sites.

No other single vineyard in Alsace comes close to Rangen for sheer force of personality, and if I was asked to nominate any vineyard anywhere in the world as producing “the ultimate terroir wine”, Rangen de Thann would be it. This June, finally, I had a chance to visit the vineyard I had revered for so long. Not only did I get to walk its steep slopes with those who tend them, but I also had a chance to taste around 25 Rangen de Thann wines. There are few days in a tasting lifetime like that. And the challenge? Simply to try to understand it all a little better.

As with most of Europe’s greatest vineyards, Rangen de Thann has long been celebrated: the entire hillside, as well as much of the valley below, was planted by 1272. Less than 20 years later came a telling tasting note for ‘Rangenwein’, from the records of the Dominican Convent in Basel which had acquired 16 ha of Rangen: “the warmest and most violent wines of the region”. There’s a touch of dragon’s breath to the wines of Rangen.

After glory days when it was one of the most sought-after wines at the court of the Habsburg Empress Maria Theresa, visited by Montaigne, name-checked by Rabelais and part-owned by the Sun King (Louis XIV), Rangen fell on hard post-phylloxera times and was actually bombed, mined and destroyed during World War One; Vieux Thann at that point formed part of the front line between German and French Alsace. Less than four hectares at the bottom of the slope were still in vines by the early 1970s. That was all that remained of a wine-making village which in the C17 occupied 500 ha.

Léonard Humbrecht and the Schoffit family were the reclamation pioneers in the 1970s and 1980s. Laborious work: Alexandre Schoffit remembers his father and grandfather spending every Saturday there throughout his childhood. There were tree roots to remove and walls to remake; the steep slope excluded heavy-duty mechanical assistance and increased the danger level exponentially. “It was ten times worse,” he recalls, “than anything else.” Now, at just over 20 ha, the grand slope is fully planted – but remains a challenge for the owners.

Inter-row ploughing which would take one man half a day in a flat vineyard takes the equivalent of eight weeks to achieve here; the Schoffits say their Rangen holdings account for 33% of their domain, but they spend 60% of their working time there. “We know every stone.” Despite the investment in time, the vineyard produces little. Olivier Humbrecht suspects that Rangen de Thann “has the lowest average yield of any Alsace Grand Cru — by 20 or 30 per cent.”

Zind-Humbrecht (Clos St Urbain) and Schoffit (Clos St Théobald) are the two biggest owners, with 5.5 ha and 5.3 ha respectively; then comes the Wolfberger co-operative with 4.4 ha and Bruno Hertz with 1.9 ha. Maurice Schoech has under half a hectare, and there are a number of other smaller owners including the town of Thann itself.

The physical setting is striking. There is, nowadays, a small town (around 8,000 inhabitants) entirely filling its valley, with two contrasting features: the beautiful gothic Collégiale, built between the C14 and C16; and the spectacularly ugly PPC chemical factory, France’s oldest, founded in 1808, with its chaotic sprawl of buildings and billowing steam. The river Thur gurgles prettily along the valley bottom, and once you’ve crossed that, you’re onto the gigantic ramp of the Rangen, which rises from about 350 m to 477 m (this makes it elevated in the Alsace context, even at the bottom). The slope glares south. On the June afternoon when I visited, it was as if I was standing in a pizza oven.

There is no visible soil as such, just rock and stone. Unusually for Alsace, Rangen is constituted of hard volcanic rocks seasoned with some secondary sedimentary material (some of it of volcanic origin). It’s well-drained, but prone to erosion, and low-vigour – hence the puny yields; but growers say that the clays which do form here down under the rocks and among the roots are high in quality. Whether the distinctive profile of wines from Rangen is due to soil and stone alone, I doubt: the slope, the altitude, the relatively closed-in, protected, almost claustrophobia-inducing nature of the site, the fact that a water-course of some prominence marks the foot of the slope, the thick woodlands which clothe the hills surrounding the slope … all this must play a role in the tens of thousands of inputs which constitute the terroir equation.

Rangen de Thann, finally, is a site almost exclusively planted to Riesling and Pinot Gris. There is a little Muscat and Gewurztraminer, but that smoky-stone note doesn’t work as well with the latter varieties as the former. “It’s the only terroir in Alsace,” says Olivier Humbrecht, “which can completely dominate the character of Gewurztraminer.”

The locals affectionately recount the story of local grower Modeste Zussy who, aged 93, uprooted his Sylvaner and planted Pinot Gris, to general astonishment. Why? they asked him. Because, he said, he wanted to have something good to drink “in his old age”. He eventually took his last sip aged 106. Tough slopes – but they help you stay fit.

Tasting Rangen de Thann

Rangen has, in the past, been called ‘the Montrachet of Alsace’. The varieties and flavours are different, of course, but in other respects the analogy is exact: these great, complete wines are in many ways the apogee of their region, and should be represented in every fine-wine collection. The more modestly priced wines of Wolfberger and Schoech are a good introduction to the glories of this site, and fine value; the wine lovers of the world are lucky, though, that the majority of the holdings of this astonishing site are in hands as skilled as those of Olivier Humbrecht MW and the Schoffit family.

Riesling, Rangen de Thann Grand Cru, Wolfberger 2012

Full gold in colour. Softly braided scents of autumn fruits, dry leaves and smoky stone. Concentrated, pure and long flavours; polished acidity; tongue-coating concentration and length. 92

Riesling, Rangen de Thann Grand Cru, Schoech 2014

Golden wine, with warm, high-summer scents of apricots and apple. You find the same fruits on the palate, but suddenly there is a dramatic stiffening, a crackle of stone, behind the fruit. Magnificent, fruit-saturated acidity conceals the 14 g/l of residual sugar.  94

Riesling, Clos St Théobald, Schistes, Rangen de Thann Grand Cru, Schoffit 2013

Rather confusingly, the name of this cuvée is not meant literally, but is used for the Schoffit Rieslings of the year which show the ‘mineral’ side of the Rangen character most clearly … which this unquestionably does, both in scent and on the palate: dense, sheer, dry, close-textured, saline and drivingly long, the fruit scents and flavours entirely subsumed in the almost Expressionist, elemental style. 95

Riesling, Clos St Urbain, Rangen de Thann Grand Cru, Zind-Humbrecht 2012

A wine where the Montrachet analogy sings out: the Riesling is rich and unctuous to smell, with bread and cream notes as well as the soft fruits and the hum of stone behind. The palate seems astonishingly dense, analogous to a weighty mineral paste, but alive and dancing not only with vivid fruit acids but also with the speckle of strange stone flavour. Not only magnificent in its own right, but the perfect wine to share, and perhaps to analyse, whenever debates surface about what ‘minerality’ might be in wine. 97

Pinot Gris, Clos St Théobald, Rangen de Thann Grand Cru, Schoffit 2012

A full gold in colour (of course), with elegant, truffley aromas which define the savoury side of Pinot Gris. On the palate, too, that same gastronomic completeness is evident with ample meaty, mushroomy, truffley notes sewn into and bonded with peach and white-chocolate richness. There’s 47 g/l of residual sugar here, but the wine’s flavour-saturated acidity and quiet stone presence helps keep it alert and lively. 95

Pinot Gris, Clos St Urbain, Rangen de Thann Grand Cru, Zind-Humbrecht 2010

Aromatically very young still, this golden wine has beguiling whipped-cream, crème-anglaise scents which leave you relaxed and charmed – so that the enormous thump of flavour you feel when the wine hits the tongue takes you aback. Lush, fat, round, rich, dense and drivingly long, yet at the same time sparkling and glittering with the brilliant light of fruit-saturated acidity; pounded stone and white truffle complete the nuanced richness. It’s hard to imagine a better Pinot Gris than this. 97

Pinot Gris, Vendange Tardive, Clos St Urbain, Rangen de Thann Grand Cru, Zind-Humbrecht 1988

Olivier Humbrecht generously opened this cellar treasure to underline the ability of wines from this site to endure in time. The 1988 vintage was long, cool and drawn-out, with a fine crop of healthy grapes which only began to develop botrytis in October and which were eventually picked in November. It’s now a deep gold in colour, with a cream-of-apricot scent with astonishing lift to it. On the palate, the tension between sweetness and acidity in this vintage seems to approach ice wine levels – but the genetic patrimony of this site and Pinot Gris itself gives it a succulent, almost pork-belly richness and unction which ice wine rarely has. Butterscotch, mushroom, summer fruits and crushed stone melt together to overwhelming effect. 98

Updated 31/10/2016: A reference to 90° slopes has been removed. In addition, the final wine in this list was actually the 1988 vintage, and not the 1998 vintage as originally stated.

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Andrew Jefford puts Alsace’s system of lieux-dits, communal appellations and projected Premiers Crus under the spotlight.

It is, at the very least, a 100-year project, and we’re right in the middle of it now. In common with many major undertakings, it has supporters and opponents; as usual, the arguments of both have merit. In my view, the future belongs to those who would create and build, rather than entrench a modest status quo; greater goals eclipse lesser. But I might be wrong.

The ‘Burgundification’ of Alsace

The project is the slow ‘burgundification’ of Alsace. Prior to 1971, Alsace was an anomaly. It was a region with a rich winemaking history: planted by the Romans, it was a major wine-producing and exporting area by the end of the fourteenth century. In many respects, it echoes Burgundy: a set of sun-trap, hill-slope vineyards on the western, dawn-facing side of a collapsed valley in Northern France. A favourable climate and complex topography and pedology means the potential for wines of splendid nuance. Yet history had tortured Alsace, and dealt it, by the mid-C20, a meagre hand: a single regional appellation, only granted in full in 1962. The first Grand Cru came in 1975, and the Crémant sparkling wine appellation in 1976; most of the present total of 51 Grand Crus were sanctioned in 1983 and 1992.

‘The Grands Crus have attracted ceaseless criticism’

The Grands Crus should, in an ideal world, have come last, not first – but it’s easier to define a region’s best sites, where there is a weight of historical record to call on, than it is a more modest site of local renown. Alas, the Grands Crus were circumscribed with an un-burgundian generosity which has attracted ceaseless criticism (though the term is less glaringly misused here than in St-Emilion). The story may not be over, as I’ll describe in moment.

Nowadays, though, you’ll see a host of other names on labels of Alsace wines. These names sound to most of us exactly like the Grand Cru names – Bergheim, for example, or Heissenberg, or Belzbrunner. What are they, and how do we make sense of them?

Think of Burgundy itself for a moment. Above the regional appellation come village appellations, both grouped (like Côtes de Nuits-Villages) and unitary (like Chambolle-Musigny). A village may then have lieux-dit (or unclassified single-site) vineyard names yoked to the village appellation, above which come the official Premier Cru sites (with an appellation formula which includes the village name and the Premier Cru descriptor) and then the Grand Cru sites (which have individual appellations).

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New Alsace village appellations

Since 2011, 13 village (more often called ‘communal’) appellations have come into being in Alsace. Some represent single villages (like Bergheim or Rodern), but others are grouped, like Vallée Noble (Westhalten plus Soultzmatt) or Coteaux de Haut Koenigsbourg (Chatenois, Kintzheim, Orschwiller and St Hippolyte). They appear with the Alsace AOC itself, and cover different wine types: Rodern is for red wines only; Bergheim, Vallée Noble and Coteaux de Haut Koenigsbourg for white wines only.

The lieux-dit system, by contrast, has not yet been validated by the Insititut National de l’Origine et Qualité (formerly INAO), so what follows is a picture of the work-in-progress. For the time being, producers are allowed to claim a lieux-dit if such a name already exists in the land register. Around 400 lieux-dits are claimed each year at present, of which around 170 have a concrete project which might eventually result in submission for Premier Cru status. More research work and tasting is required on the lieux-dits themselves before the region would be ready to pass them on to the authorities for approval, and in any case there is no such thing as ‘Alsace Premier Cru’ yet, nor has any framework for such a tier been formulated. That, though, is the long-term aim.

Might the lieux-dits and potential Premiers Crus act as a ‘reforming’ principle for the Grands Crus? It’s possible, since the circumscriptions will certainly be smaller, a wider spectrum of varieties will be permitted, and the quality standards accepted by those in the cru may prove in the end to be higher than for the Grands Crus.

‘No Grand Cru would want to be upstaged by a local Premier Cru, so they might be shamed into greater discipline’

If reform was imposed on the Grands Crus from above, it would never be accepted: the losers always go to court in order to drive reform into the sand. The Grands Crus, though, have since 2001 been ‘self-governed’, allowing producers in a particular Grand Cru to change the rules for themselves if they wish. No Grand Cru would want to be upstaged by a local Premier Cru, so they might be shamed into greater discipline (though admittedly it is hard to see a reduction in the actual land boundaries of an Alsace Grand Cru winning local assent).

Potential for ‘huge confusion’

Is all this a good idea? For Patrick Aledo of the Cave de Beblenheim and Pierre Sparr, the overtures towards lieux-dits and Premiers Crus is “a very, very bad decision taken by the independent growers. They live in a bubble – most French people don’t even understand what a grape variety is. The Grands Crus represent four per cent of the harvest, but not all of that is sold as Grand Cru. Around a quarter is blended away into AOC Alsace because it hasn’t got a market as Grand Cru. I’m fiercely opposed to these new levels of classification.” It’s a point of view shared by Marc Hugel. “Alsace already has a problem of identity, so bringing another two layers of complexity is crazy. It will create huge confusion.”

Pragmatically speaking, Aledo and Hugel are quite correct: this torrent of nomenclature is way beyond the comprehension of 95 per cent of wine drinkers, both in France and abroad. That, though, is true of every single one of the world’s fine-wine regions, and it doesn’t matter at all. Such frameworks, even if imperfectly understood, reassure drinkers that there is a depth and a richness to wine culture that they might aspire to should they wish. We all live quite happily with complexity which we don’t understand, have no desire to understand, and no intention of ever understanding. How many of us use every feature offered by our computers, smartphones or cars? The gulf of comprehension doesn’t dampen enthusiasm, though, nor does it stop us from paying for extra complexity which we will never master.

‘This is an exercise in recovering the memory of the land’

For individual wine producers, by contrast, this process is immensely important. If there are 400 lieux-dits named in the land register, it’s is because they all meant something for hundreds of years to local wine farmers. This, in other words, is an exercise in recovering the memory of the land. It’s vital that the legislative framework provides routes to do this. Routes to excel, in other words.

The Grand Cru system is not yet perfect; it may be, as Patrick Aledo alleges, that the average price of a Grand Cru wine ex-cellars is less than 10 euros. Remember, though, that all this is work in progress. I can remember a time when Burgundy’s Grand Cru wines were often chronically disappointing, and cost much less than they do now. But progress happens — if the routes exist to enable it to happen. The finest Alsace Grands Crus are now some of France’s best white wines, and amply competitive with Burgundy’s white Grands Crus. There may not be many of them; there will be more in future. Alsace deserves its Premiers Crus, and it deserves its lieux-dits, too. Bring them on.

Ten lieux-dits to watch  

Here are 10 outstanding wines from a generally impressive tasting of 120 lieux-dits I recently undertook in Alsace. These are better wines than many Grands Crus from less skilled or less ambitious sources, and therefore might be tentatively regarded as potential Premiers Crus.

Jean-Baptiste Adam, Pinot Gris, Letzenberg 2015

This red-soiled marly clay-limestone hill site in Ingersheim has produced a Pinot Gris of impressive aromatic complexity (mountain pasture and freshly mown hay) and a palate of textured, creamy elegance. 90

Bott-Geyl, Riesling, Grafenreben 2013

This wine, grown on limey clay soils in Beblenheim, is the very definition of deliciousness: warm, softly fruited aromas and a mouthfilling, generously fleshed but nonetheless clean-lined palate, packed with apple and quince notes and with a stony tingle, too. 92

Agathe Bursin, Gewurztraminer, Dirstelberg 2015

From a pink sandstone-soiled site in Westhalten, this is truly gratifying Gewurztraminer of creamy voluptuousness: rich yet clean and fresh, packed with orange and tangerine. 90

Rolly Gassmann, Riesling, Kappelweg de Rorschwihr 2010

This limpid, golden, semi-mature Riesling has complex scents which hint at everything from lime blossom and lemon verbena to walnut and juniper; its pristine, singing balance gives the wine great lift and resonance. 92

Dirler-Cadé, Riesling, Belzbrunner 2013

Riesling from this sandstone-soiled site in Bergholtz has fresh, graceful citrus scents with a vivid seamless and engaging flavour of great poise and limpidity: deftly drawn and crafted. 92

Albert Mann, Riesling, Rosenberg 2013

Another clay-limestone vineyard, this time above the village of Wettolsheim. Total enchantment on the nose: a silver shower of apple, rose and hay, with a little brioche richness behind. On the palate, apple-peel and orange-peel mingle with cardamom spice: pristine, fresh, lush yet vivid. 93

Ostertag, Riesling, Fronholz 2014

Orchard fruits, rose petal, plant sap and rosemary notes are woven through the powerful aromatic presence of this sandy-quartz-soiled lieu-dit wine from the village of Epfig. On the palate, this has dramatic, chewy, elemental impact, packed with seemingly ‘mineral’ force. 94

Roland Schmitt, Riesling, Glintzberg 2015

Abutting the Grand Cru of Altenberg de Bergbieten with marl-gypsum soils, this is a delicately phrased and classy Riesling in which floral aromatic notes mingle with taut yet ripe acidity and a long, sappy, fresh flavour. 91

Weinbach, Pinot Gris, Altenbourg 2008

The marly limestones of this vineyard lie beneath the similarly soiled Furstentum Grand Cru above Kientzheim. This magnificent wine has a wonderfully grave, solemn aroma: pollen, honey, dripping summer fruits, drifting in a heavy mist out of the glass. On the palate, it is powerful, weighty, thrusting: a shout from the earth. Essence-like wine, almost fiery at its heart, yet also packed with lime-blossom enchantment. 96

Zind-Humbrecht, Riesling, Clos Windsbuhl 2013

This gently sloping limestone site in Hunawihr was first singled out as outstanding in 1324, at which point it was purchased by the Habsburgs of Austria. Some 689 years later, in the prodigiously talented hands of Olivier Humbrecht, it has produced a truly deep, resonant, multi-dimensioned Riesling with a remarkable breadth of allusion (apple and nectarine to celery and courgette), stony pungency and cascading force. Great density and wealth combine with astonishing lift, finesse and poise: evident Premier Cru potential here. 94

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Alsace should be a French heartland for terroir-driven white wines, and no other part of France can make Riesling as good. Thankfully, more producers are starting to realise, writes Jane Anson.

This column was originally published in the September 2016 issue of Decanter magazine. Subscribe to the magazine here to read the full column.

Alsace white wine has already been regarded as Burgundy’s little sister. Now, it is growing up…

The loss just a few months ago of Etienne Hugel served as a sombre reminder that spokespersons for this underappreciated region are all too few.

It can be easy to imagine that the ancient wine regions in France have all the kinks worked out in their systems.

But the beautiful hillsides of Alsace, despite all of their history, are still searching for an identity that finally sees them achieve the recognition they deserve within the world’s fine wine regions.

Partly it’s political – all that tug of warring between Germany and France over the centuries; partly it’s fashion, with the region’s sweet wines finding the same tough reception that is being accorded to Sauternes, Jurançon, Monbazillac and others.

But it’s hard to ignore that a significant factor is self-inflicted, with too many players favouring high yields that have damaged quality.

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There has been too little weight given to designating individual vineyard plots of particular quality – not to mention weird laws in the region that insist the status of grand cru can only be awarded to sites under multiple ownership, thereby locking out monopoles such as clos ste-hune (Trimbach) and clos Windsbuhl (Zind- humbrecht).

Unclear labelling doesn’t help matters either, with the dry styles that alsace traditionally favours taking a swing to the sweeter side over the past 20 years, but rarely with additional information on labels to alert drinkers to what they are going to get in the bottle.

‘There have been moments when we have almost had to apologise for selling Alsace wine,’ says Séverine Beydon-schlumberger, of Domaine schlumberger.

A new beginning

In response to this, she and a small group of other estates joined forces in November 2015 to create Alsace Crus et Terroirs – or ‘ACT’. The aim is to focus attention on the strengths of Alsace.

And there are many. This is a region that grows 90% white grapes, and should be seen as France’s heartland for terroir-driven whites.

Nowhere in France can make Riesling like this

Besides the mosaic of Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris, Gewurztraminer and Muscat, nowhere else in France can even begin to make Rieslings with this complexity and power.

‘We haven’t been successful enough at presenting the diversity of this region in a positive light,’ says Beydon-schlumberger.

‘We hope that by joining forces we can do this, and be proud of the distinctive history that has given this region its identity.’

Read the full column in the latest issue of Decanter magazine. Buy the September Decanter issue here.

Jane Anson is away.

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Andrew Jefford heads to Alsace’s Niedermorschwihr – and discovers a great winemaking talent...

The tasting room lies at the back of the house, at the top of a flight of steps. Jean Boxler’s wife Sylvie welcomed me. I waited: a pretty, light room; wooden furniture; a gingham tablecloth. I could see the steep, vine-covered hills of Niedermorschwihr through the window. There were glasses on the table. Some minutes passed, punctuated by birdsong.

Jean appeared. We shook hands; talked a little. The basics: 14 ha, mostly slopes. Quite high, 300 m to 400 m. Coolish; eight to 10 days later to ripen than Turckheim. He went to fetch some bottles, returned, and poured a wine in complete silence. This was beginning to feel like a Bergman film.

I tasted, quietly, tapping down a few notes, uncertain as to whether I ought to break the still air with a remark or not. Jean seemed to be looking at me, calmly and studiedly, as if I was a giant insect which had just fluttered in and crashed down on the table. I decided that this must be some kind of a test, that I was doomed to fail, so it was better to say nothing, but smile encouragingly instead. “It’s …” he eventually said, in the lowest, quietest tone I have ever heard a winemaker use, as if he were apologizing for the wine’s existence and despairing of its prospects, “… a Riesling.” Then more silence.

Indeed it was a Riesling: a magnificent one.

By the end, I’d tasted 13 of Jean’s wines, sold under the Albert Boxler label (a beautiful design by a cousin of Jean’s grandfather Albert). Half-way through the tasting, I was running out of superlatives, and longing for unencumbered time in which to tease out all of the wine’s nuances. This was my first taste of Jean Boxler’s wines, and I was visiting on recommendation: how had it taken me so long to discover a wine craftsman of this order? For many years, I’ve thought of Olivier Humbrecht as, well, the greatest white winemaker in the world if vineyard differentiation is your criterion. By the end of this tasting, I felt that Jean Boxler was as accomplished as Olivier – but in an utterly different way. That contrast tells us a lot about Alsace itself.

How should we best express these differences? “Catholics use botrytis; protestants fight against it,” Pierre Gassman told me a little later the same afternoon, shortly before treating me to the largest two-hour tasting (66 wines) I have ever done at a single domain. “They don’t even buy the same land.” I’d heard this distinction made before, at the protestant house of Trimbach, as a justification for its insistence on dryness. The debate has echoes in the botrytis battles of the Wachau, Alsace’s Danubian counterpart.

The sixteenth century Wars of Religion and the seventeenth century Thirty Years War cost Alsace so dearly that this dichotomy still springs readily to mind, but I don’t know … is it really good enough, in today’s secular age? Perhaps a better clue was Bergman. Should we not see some great Alsace wines as being made in a northern spirit, and some in a southern spirit? The northern quest, if you like, is for purity and verticality of expression, for pared and pristine refinement, for gothic lift and an almost ascetic ideal of beauty; the southern quest is for amplitude, width and plurality of expression, for articulacy without limits, for Romanesque or Baroque roundness of contour and for a generous ideal of beauty. Alsace can face both north and south, magnificently.

Seen in this light, the greatness of Jean Boxler’s wines is as close to Nordic perfection as you’ll find in the region. Indeed as I tasted his Rieslings, it struck me that these were the kind of wines which many of Germany’s greatest Trocken producers would love to create, supposing they had just a little more light, a little more warmth, a little more flavoury swell and volume from their land. Any of Jean Boxler’s Rieslings would surely excel in blind tasting against the very finest and most sought-after Alsace dry classics. My tasting notes are given below. Believe me, I have tried to rein the scores in as much as I could… but the numbers (which of course don’t matter much) kept running off of their own accord.

There wasn’t time to visit Jean Boxler’s vineyards or cellar, but his vineyards are in general steep and high for Alsace; some account of soils are given in the notes, and results this good cannot but be a product of fastidious and painstaking viticulture. The wines, Jean says, “are all made in exactly the same way” – with long, slow pressing and settling, then a slow three or four months’ fermentation in large wooden casks, after which they stay on their lees until receiving a single racking and filtering before bottling at around 11 months after the harvest. These techniques are only possible if the cellar is kept extremely cool.

And the rest of the encounter? Jean’s youngest son ran into the room after a while, and the words began to flow, and Jean and I had lunch together in the village, and found we had much in common. The Bergmanesque approach isn’t wrong, though. When it’s time to taste wine, silence really does make a good start.

Pinot Blanc, Albert Boxler 2014

This cuvée is half-Pinot Blanc, half-Auxerrois, from a variety of mainly granite-soiled vineyards around the village. A substantial percentage of Auxerrois can sometimes leave Pinot Blanc rather soggy in the middle, but this is a wine of pristine focus: spring-garden scents and limpid, translucent, glittering flavours. Bracing, fresh, complete. 91

Pinot Blanc B, Albert Boxler 2014

Jean Boxler uses initials to key vineyard sources on labels where the full name is not, for one reason or another, permitted. This is a pure Pinot Blanc from fifty-year-old vines in the Grand Cru of Brand: a scent of apples, pears and talc, and more apple-pear flavours on the palate. Sappy, driving, concentrated and seamless, with a perfect synthesis between poised acidity and the impression of ground stone. Mouthwatering, subtle, refined: I’ve never tasted a better Pinot Blanc. 93

Riesling, Albert Boxler 2014

This is the wine Jean Boxler makes from assorted Riesling parcels, often in cooler sites or altitudes and with very stony soils. For all that, it’s a wine of astonishing purity, drive and depth. It’s actually rather quiet in its fruit presence (the scents suggest marzipan, ground rock powder and crushed stonefruit kernels; some apple and pomelo emerges on the palate), but this only serves to underscore the wine’s dramatic density and length. 92

Sommerberg Grand Cru Riesling JV, Albert Boxler 2014

The amphitheatre-like, granite-soiled, super-steep Sommerberg (a slope of 45°) is Boxler’s flag-carrying vineyard, and he produces three separate lieux-dits wines from within it, as well as a generic and this Jeunes Vignes (young vine) version. This wine, with its scent of peach juice and explosion of stony fruits, sums the site up memorably well. 93

Sommerberg Grand Cru Riesling, Albert Boxler 2014

The generic version of this Grand Cru in 2014 (from two sites, says Boxler) is more reflective of site than varietal: hay, white pepper and high-pasture summer flowers set the nose quivering, while there is lime, vanilla and pounded almond on the palate: it’s a little warmer and more ample than the JV and the E versions, with a beautifully lacquered yet fresh mouthfeel. 94

Sommerberg Grand Cru Riesling E, Albert Boxler 2014

Is there an Alsace wine more perfectly reflective of granite soils than this one? The E stands for Eckberg, the highest, coolest and stoniest part of Sommerberg; it’s always late ripening, but the very long 2014 season (120 days on average for Boxler from flowering to harvest) drew the season out still further. The scents of this wine summarise the orchard and broadleaf-forest charm of the region, without any element obtruding: cereals, limes, nuts, with plenty of fresh, lifted grace. After that, the palate comes as a shock, since all of the springtime charm of the scents fades into the background, and the stonier side of its personality comes forward. It’s long and dense, and by the time the wine has faded almost a minute later, the two sides of its personality are in spellbinding harmony. 97

Sommerberg Grand Cru Riesling D, Albert Boxler 2014

The D is for Dudenstein: a mid-slope zone of the Grand Cru (280-300 m) where the granite soils overlie those based on shell limestone, with more presence of clay. You’d expect the wine to be richer, and it is … yet richer in a very Jean-Boxler-kind-of-way. The Nordic inspiration holds: this is summer after the springtime, but the carnival of fruit and flowers keeps all its energy and its tingle, and it remains firmly ballasted by those milled stone notes. A touch more cream? Maybe. 96

Brand Grand Cru Riesling, Albert Boxler 2014

And still the Rieslings come. The Brand, you think, can’t possibly be as good as the Sommerbergs – and then it is, albeit in different guise. The fruits pull back, and this time it’s flower and plant notes which step forward: fresh hay, Chartreuse herbs, gentian root. On the palate, it’s yet another ‘stone wine’, though the stone itself seems somehow richer and fatter than for the Sommerberg wines; the paste it forms with the wine’s masterful yet ripe acidity is a wonder. 97

Brand Grand Cru Riesling K, Albert Boxler 2014

This is from the Kirchberg section of Brand, from east-facing 70-year-old vines at about 350 m, and at present is aromatically more restrained that the previous wine: tree sap and spring breezes. On the palate, though, it’s a stone lance – much less broad in the beam than the generic version, but penetrating, long and glittering. There is much in this brilliant wine, but it will need time to emerge. 97

Brand Grand Cru Pinot Gris, Albert Boxler 2014

2014 was the Drosophila suzukii vintage in Alsace, and the pink/lilac-coloured berries of Pinot Gris and Gewurztraminer made these varieties particularly susceptible. Nonetheless, by dint of forensic sorting (in some cases discarding up to half the crop), Jean Boxler has still contrived to make wondrous wines from these varieties. The Brand Pinot Gris is a tapestry of faintly decadent richness, yet Boxler’s hallmark green threads of freshness and silver threads of elegance are still there in the weave. (“Riesling is spiritual,” he says, “but Pinot Gris is pure pleasure. It’s much easier at table than Riesling. Riesling can break things, but Pinot Gris is easy, it’s friendly, it’s cooperative.”) 92

Sommerberg Grand Cru Pinot Gris W, Albert Boxler 2014

The W stands for Wiptal – a lieu-dit lower down on the Sommerberg which Jean Boxler reserves for Pinot varieties. The scent of this wine takes us from summer into autumn, with its burnished fruits; it’s autumn at dawn all the same, with cool freshness pointing up the ripe, ripe fruit. There’s a waterfall of flavour on the palate, backed by extra extract: spice, salt, stone. Grand Gris. 94

Brand Grand Cru Gewurztraminer, Albert Boxler 2014

‘Doesn’t he make any mistakes at all?’ I thought to myself when I sniffed this Gewurztraminer, since from a difficult year for the variety Jean Boxler has managed to produce a wine whose scent of cream, rose and jasmine is realized with virtuoso precision and delicacy. It’s even better, if anything, on the palate, since the wine has far more length and depth than you expected, yet the drift of perfume covers all and does so for another 20 or 30 seconds into the finish. A Gewurztraminer of rare breed and finesse. 95

Alsace vineyard land once believed to have been owned by French philosopher Voltaire has helped to produce one of the best wines at this year’s Decanter World Wine Awards.

Charles Sparr, 12th generation of an Alsace family wine dynasty, presented a trio of medal winning Rieslings at last week’s Decanter World Wine Awards 2016 tasting in London’s Vintners’ Hall.

They included Sparr’s Schoenenbourg grand cru Riesling 2013, which was one of only 31 wines to win a platinum best in show medal at this year’s awards.

The Sparr family have been making Alsace wine since the 17th century, and their south-facing vineyards are steeped in history.

‘An ancient land book reveals that our vineyards had at one time been owned by Voltaire,’ Sparr told Decanter.com.

Voltaire and wine

Voltaire, whose real name was François-Marie Arouet, was known to have lived in Alsace in the mid-18th Century for a brief period and had owned vineyards in the Schoenenbourg area.

• READ ALSO: Leonardo da Vinci vineyard revived in Milan

It appears that the sun-drenched Alsatian slopes had a lasting appeal for the philosopher.

In Roger Pearson’s biography, Voltaire Almighty: A Life in Pursuit of Freedom, he describes the way the allegory of the vineyard inspired Voltaire’s ideas of faith and liberty.

The profound sense of tranquility alloyed with the patient toil of viticulture gave rise to his concept of ‘the vine of truth’ and ‘the vineyard of the Lord’, Pearson writes.

In 1764, Voltaire urged mankind, ‘Tend your vines, and crush the infamous.’

Charles Sparr said, ‘Since the discovery I myself have been inspired to read some Voltaire, often looking out over the same vistas he had long ago.’

Schoenenbourg grand cru 2013: old vines are key, says Sparr

Sparr said old vines planted on terroir that has known viticulture for centuries helped to underpin his wines.

Of the 2013 Schoenenbourg grand cru Riesling, he said, ‘2013 was very special, it was a great year to give perfect richness and acidity – it was also the year I got married.’

He added, ‘The old vines give layers of complexity and minerality, and they are spread every part of our eight plots to gain all the diversity of the terroir.’

Editing by Chris Mercer.

• See all platinum ‘best in show’ winners at DWWA 2016

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Jane Anson ventures into the disputed territory of sugar levels in Alsace wine, and finds two sides still struggling to negotiate a peace settlement.

‘It’s not exactly a discussion,’ says Jean-Frederic Hugel, ‘more like a lot of people shouting at each other.

We are sat in what has to be one of the most picturesque tasting rooms in France. Perched halfway up the cobbled street in the medieval town of Riquewihr, Hugel & Fils winery is found in a half-timbered yellow-painted house, one of countless rakishly-angled gingerbread houses that line the town. Hanging baskets of flowers, shaded inner courtyards, ancient wells and oriel windows abound. At Christmas the entire place grinds to a halt such is the heaving mass of eager tourists. But today a light drizzle has kept the crowds away, and we can drink in the just-the-perfect-side-of-kitsch atmosphere in relative peace.

Until, that is, the subject of residual sugar in Alsace comes up.

We’re discussing a tasting that we attended the day before of the Brand grand cru. Located close to the town of Turkheim, Brand is made up largely of granite soils, with pockets of clay and limestone, and is split between 13 producers, including many of the biggest names of the region such as Zind-Humbrecht, Josmeyer, Charles Baur and Albert Boxler. Tasting through the wines was a fascinating exercise, with many displaying the stunning potential of riesling in this most northerly of French wine regions. And yet they did little to show a family signature of Brand, even though all were from the riesling grape, partly because the residual sugar within the wines on display ranged from totally dry (Josmeyer, with less than 2 grams per litre) to 9 grams per litre (François Baur) and everything in between.

You’ll find this a lot in Alsace, whether at the cellar door or at home – not helped by the fact that the wine labels don’t always give very much away. And the reason that it provokes such a heated discussion is because the attitude towards residual sugar is right at the heart of Alsace’s identity. ‘Everyone has a strong opinion,’ as Hugel points out. ‘Half say it’s evil, the other half that it’s a classic character of our wines’.

Séverine Beydon-Schlumberger of Domaine Schlumberger tells me that the terroir in parts of her Saering Grand Cru is masked in the final wine unless a small amount of residual sugar (she feels around 5g/l is perfect) is able to draw it out. ‘We did a few bone dry vintages,’ she tells me during a horizontal of her unquestionably beautiful wines, ‘but I found that the Riesling was simply too severe and the austerity hid its true character. The lightest touch of residual sugar better expresses the minerality’.

Isabelle Josmeyer, winemaker at Josmeyer, actually snorts at the idea that residual sugar can help rather than hide terroir expression, and has long advocated ‘true’ dry rieslings. Paul McKirdy, the Scottish winemaker at Zind Humbrecht, goes somewhere in between, allowing the wines to ferment to wherever the yeasts naturally stop working, regardless of whether the sugar has been fully converted to alcohol or not. All farm biodynamically (or nearly entirely in the case of Schlumberger), and no question that all three make brilliant wines – but ones with very different strategies for residual sugar.

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Let’s back up just briefly. All wines have some traces of residual sugar in them, as they start life as the sugary juice of grapes hanging on vines. The process of vinification (and more precisely the action of yeast) turns that sugar into alcohol, but true 0% dry doesn’t happen. For most wines, once you are below 2g/l (2%) you can no longer ‘taste’ the sweetness. But things are not that simple in reality. Acidity levels, grape variety, aromatic intensity, age of the wine, levels of tannin and other sources of bitterness… all of these have an impact on our perception of sweetness in wine – even the temperature at which it is served.

But there seems to be an unusual level of suspicion towards ‘true’ dry styles in Alsace. One of the things that I found fascinating while there was how many winemakers, when I got to the bone dry wine in a lineup, said ‘oh yes, that’s the one for the professionals…’. It reminded me of something that Julien Schaal, a winemaker who works in both Alsace and South Africa told me a few months ago (and confirmed last week).

‘When I first drank my Alsace Rieslings with friends in South Africa, they would be put off by how sweet they were. I had hardly noticed to be honest, but the clarity of flavours and intensity that we were getting (in chardonnay) in the Elgin Valley made me rethink my entire process back in France’.

Those who believe in a touch of residual sugar have a totally reasonable corner to defend. Riesling has a natural acidity that means you can play with sugar levels in a way that just isn’t possible in many other grape varieties (add that to the complexity of its aromatic structure and you can see why several winemakers I spoke to worry about writing the exact amount of residual sugar on the label).

Tasting through the wines while paying attention to listed residual sugar shows just how little we can anticipate taste through simply looking at figures.

But the heated discussions going on in Alsace right now (and, let’s face it, for many years) show that even the most ardent champions of this diversity know the confusion is helping neither consumers nor themselves.

Want to see the impact of residual sugar? A few wines to try:

Domaine Schlumberger Riesling Saering Grand Cru 2012

This is a beautiful wine, hugely flinty, with a contraction on the end of the palate that emphasizes a slight bitterness to the lemon rind edges and promises a long life ahead. Hugely complex with touches of spice. Residual sugar is 5g/l, 12.5%abv.

Trapet-Alsace Riesling Schlossberg Grand Cru 2013

Domaine Trapet from Gevrey Chambertin is making stunning Alsace Rieslings that are really worth seeking out. This is hugely aerian and elegant, and needs carafing. Feels almost totally dry and yet has 6g/l of residual sugar – taste this and you can never say that a touch of residual sugar masks terroir. From granite soils that convey power to the grapes but the freshness was emphasised in the 2013 vintage. 3.15ph, 6g/l sugar, 12.5%abv.

Josmeyer Riesling Brand Grand Cru 2014

A ‘true dry’ riesling with residual sugar level of under 2g/l, displaying an incredible precision. It is certainly true that while tasting alongside the other Brand Grands Crus, the initial impression of this is a slight austerity, but just two minutes in the glass the flavours unwind, and what you get is a thrillingly electric wine, with crisp citrus, a smoky edge and slate walls.

Biecher & Schaal Riesling Kastelberg 2014

From the only Grand Cru in Alsace with blue schist soils, this has pear and crisp citrus aromatics, merging with nectarine and taut spice on the palate. A perfectly pointed, elongated spike of a wine that brings you up short and keeps you wanting more. Hugely concentrated, clear ageing potential. This has a just-over-the-threshold 2.9g/l residual sugar and a 3.02pH.

And a true, no question about it, residual sugar wine…

Hugel Riesling selection des Grains Nobles S 2009

This comes from a tiny clay and granite plot that is usually the first place to be harvested, but in 2009 the heat meant they had to concentrate on other parts of the vineyard, and they left this for a few weeks. When they came back to it, a perfect bloom of noble rot had covered the grapes. One of the most intense, perfectly balanced and nuanced wines I tasted all week in Alsace. Rich, endlessly textured, with saffron, apricot, quince, crab apple, toffee and searing lime. With 218g/l residual sugar, showing exactly what can be achieved.

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This Alsace Riesling is from a single grand cru site in one of the best Alsace vintages.

A wine legend because…

Single-vineyard wines, other than those from grand cru sites, are not that common in Alsace, and over the decades Clos Ste-Hune has won a reputation as the finest of them all. It is only produced in good vintages; thus in 1980 and 1984 no Clos Ste-Hune was bottled. 1990, by contrast, is recognised as one of the greatest years in Alsace. The reputation of the Clos is not restricted to Alsace; many critics and sommeliers regard it as one of the greatest white wines in the world.

Looking back

The Trimbachs have been producing wine in Alsace since the early 17th century, and have owned the Clos for more than two centuries, although the first vintage to be released commercially was the 1919. In 1990 the winemaker would have been Pierre Trimbach and this was his first vintage after taking over from his father Bernard.

The vintage

Like its predecessor 1989, 1990 was an outstanding vintage in Alsace, although the crop was reduced by about 25% after poor weather at flowering. But the aromatic varieties were more troubled by these problems than Riesling. The winter was mild and dry, so in spring the vines experienced a growth spurt that was brought to a halt by miserable weather in June, just before flowering. Thereafter the growing season was fine and the harvest took place in early October in perfect conditions; sugar levels were abnormally high.

The terroir

The Clos is a 1.67-hectare parcel within the 26ha Rosacker Grand Cru, but the Trimbachs (like the firms of Hugel and Beyer) have always been firmly opposed to the grand cru system in Alsace. Since the existing grands crus have been generously defined, they feel it would be a disservice to this great wine to place it on the same level as other Rieslings from this site. There is no doubt that Clos Ste-Hune is easily the finest wine to be produced from Rosacker, and the Trimbachs wish to protect that renown. The site faces southeast on a gentle slope, and has rather heavy marl and clay soils over a limestone subsoil. The average age of the vines is about 50 years. Yields are generally about 50 hectolitres per hectare – low but not especially so, given that Riesling can reach a potential alcohol level of 13.5% at such a yield. It is the small size of the Clos that ensures production rarely exceeds 8,000 bottles in any year, a rarity factor that, in addition to its quality, justifies a very high price. Despite this very limited production, the Trimbachs have occasionally, as in 1989, produced an even scarcer Vendange Tardive (late harvest) from the Clos.

The wine

The Trimbachs have long produced Rieslings that are among the most severe and uncompromising from Alsace. These include not only Clos Ste-Hune but the magnificent Cuvée Frédéric Emile as well. They have never followed, indeed have always opposed, the trend to leave some residual sugar in the wine. (That said, the 1990 did have 5.6 grams of residual sugar, so rich was the fruit, but there is no perceptible sweetness.) To preserve the acidity so key for the longevity of their wines, the Rieslings do not go through malolactic fermentation. Although fermented in stainless steel, the wine is aged for about six months in large old casks. It is bottled relatively young, but then spends five years in the Trimbach cellars before release. Clos Ste-Hune does not seek to charm, and the initial impression given by a young vintage is often one of ruthless austerity. It’s a wine that demands bottle age and should not be broached until it is at least seven years old.

How does it taste?

Reserved, nutty apricot and apple nose. Very rich and full-bodied on the palate, supple yet nutty and mineral, a touch alcoholic but has splendid persistence.

The facts

Bottles produced 8,300

Composition 100% Riesling

Yield 59 hl/ha

Alcohol 14.2%

Release price N/A

Price today £395 x1 bottle Handford Wines (UK)

Etienne Hugel's boundless energy and tireless promotion of both his family estate and Alsace wines in general will see him fondly remembered by many around the world, writes Sue Style with help from Thierry Meyer.

Etienne Hugel‘s sudden death at the age of 57 was announced by the Hugel family winery in Riquewihr, Alsace, on Sunday 10 April.

Etienne, who succeeded his uncle Jean – known throughout the Anglo-Saxon world as Johnny Hugel – in the role of roving ambassador for Hugel wines, was famous for his boundless energy, his broad smile, his communications skills – he was a master of social media – and his passion for Riesling.

At tastings and wine events at home and abroad, he took evident delight in applying (non-permanent) tattoos to the forearms of fellow Riesling-lovers; tattoos which spelled out in bold black ink the name of his favoured grape variety.

As Famille Hugel commercial director, Etienne travelled the world in a tireless quest to spread the news of Hugel wines, from the best-selling Gentil to the top-level, newly baptised Grossi Laüe range of wines.

Latterly, accompanied by his Japanese-born sommelier wife Kaoru, he travelled frequently to Asia, which has become an increasingly important market for Hugel.

Back home in Riquewihr, he would receive visitors at the famous, primrose-yellow, half-timbered house on a corner of the cobbled main street in the centre of town, where they would be assured of a warm welcome and a tasting to remember.

At the slightest encouragement, he would bound off up into the vineyards that rise steeply above the village with visitors in tow, a bottle tucked under one arm, corkscrew and glasses in the other, in order to taste the wine directly in its terroir.

In recent times, Etienne watched with delight and pride as members of the younger generation (the thirteenth) of the Hugel family – his son Jean Frédéric and daughter Charlotte, and his two nephews Marc André and Christian – joined the family firm. With generosity of spirit, he encouraged each of them to find their place and bring their own contribution, particular skills and fresh ideas to the table.

His untimely disappearance is a grievous loss to his family, as well as to countless colleagues and a multitude of wine-loving friends and followers around the world.

Thierry Meyer, regional chair for Alsace at the Decanter World Wine Awards, said, ‘Etienne liked to live at 100 miles an hour – but that was no reason for him to leave us so quickly and so unexpectedly.’

‘To succeed Jean Hugel, who spoke three languages – French, German and English – with incredible verve, was not easy,’ said Bernard Burtschy, wine critic and co-chair for Languedoc-Rousillon at DWWA.

‘Worldwide traveller and Asia lover, Etienne (Jean’s nephew) got there by passion and enthusiasm. He had no equal as ambassador of both Riesling and the family business. Alsace has lost its brightest ambassador, the world of wine an aesthete with huge knowledge.’

Extra reporting by Yohan Castaing.

An increase in the quality of Alsace Pinot Noir means wines made from certain grand cru vineyards should be officially given grand cru status, winemakers will argue in a formal application.

A plan to secure grand cru status for some Alsace Pinot Noir wines is being backed by the region’s winemakers’ association, which is set to formally propose the move to France’s appellation body, INAO, in March or April 2016.

Bureaucrats rejected a similar application 15 year ago on the basis that production was too small. But producers are hopeful that quality improvements and higher production will carry them through this time.

White wines haven’t always been so dominant in Alsace, according to Véronique Muré, of Famille Muré and the owner of Clos Saint Landelin.

During the 15th and 16th Centuries, Rouffach, a town in southern Alsace, was more well known for its red wines than its whites, she told Decanter.com. ‘We found documents stating that the reds were sold for higher prices than the white wines.’

Frédéric Bach, director of the Alsace winemakers’ association, added, ‘red wines have always been produced in Alsace. But, the quality was not allowed to have to a better classification than the basic AOP Alsace.’

Next year’s proposal is set to encompass Alsace Pinot Noir produced from the grands crus of Vorbourg (in Rouffach), Hengst (in Wintzenheil) and Kirchberg (in Barr).

‘In soil that includes clay and limestone, Pinot Noir gains power (from the clay) as well as finesse and stylish texture (from the limestone rocks),’ said Muré, who produces an acclaimed Pinot Noir from the Clos Saint Landelin monopole in Vorbourg Grand Cru.

Along with Domaine Albert Mann, Muré’s family pioneered high quality red wines. Their cuvee “V” (for Vorbourg) was sold at €41 ex-cellar against €22 for the Riesling Clos Saint Landelin.

‘We need to set a limit for this cuvée of three bottles per customer because there is more demand than what we can produce,’ Muré said.

She said red grapes are booming. ‘For example, on Vorbourg Grand Cru, 15% of the land is planted in Pinot Noir,’ said Muré, adding yields are smaller than for white wines, at 45hl per hectare.

(Editing by Chris Mercer)

A summer heatwave means there is a high potential alcohol level for Alsace Riesling wines in several areas, say producers including Hugel & Fils, but the overall crop looks healthy.

A July heatwave that saw temperatures top 40 degrees celsius (104˚ F) means potential alcohol from the 2015 wine harvest is above 16% in some cases, said the Alsace Wine Council (CIVA). Early reports suggest the 2015 crop is healthy with little sign of disease.

A ‘bulldozer’ Alsace 2015 vintage

‘It’s a bulldozer vintage,’ said Guillaume Mochel, of Domaine Frederic Mochel, northern Alsace. High alcohol may leave too much residual sugar to make dry wine from his vines in grand cru Altenberg de Bergbieten.

But, he will make non-grand cru dry Riesling with grapes at 14.5% potential alcohol.

Further south, in Riquewihr, Jean-Frederic Hugel at Hugel & Fils said the domain doesn’t plan to use Riesling from its Schoenenbourg [grand cru] vines – apart from late harvested grapes – and reported potential alcohol up to 16.5%.

Hugel will buy grapes from cooler areas or higher yielding young vines to make non-grand cru dry Riesling in 2015. ‘Luckily we have back vintages to 2008 that we can sell,’ Hugel said.

Trimbach optimistic

Others, including Jean Trimbach of Maison Trimbach, were more optimistic. ‘The Rieslings picked at 15 and above potential alcohol represent only a very small percentage of the volume,’ he said. ‘Our grand cru Schlossberg was super-healthy and picked at 14 potential degrees on our last day of picking [2 October].’

Low acidity

CIVA has allowed acidification in Alsace for the first time since 2003, ‘because acidities were lower than in previous years’. But, acidity is above 2003 in general thanks to cool evenings in August and September.

Botrytis scarce

Dry and sunny weather means little botrytis, especially for Gewurtztraminer. U p to 20mm of rain in early October prompted some botrytis for the thinner-skinned Riesling grapes. CIVA spokesman Guillaume Arnold said that many vintners would make sweet late harvest wines based on passerillage (drying out grapes to enhance concentration) rather than on botrytis.

Crémant d’Alsace

For the bubbly Crémant d’Alsace, which accounts for 25% of Alsace wine sales worldwide, pickers had to move early to maintain freshness after good weather saw rapid ripending at the end of August.

(Editing by Chris Mercer)

The 13th generation has just started working at this famous Alsace producer, notable for setting the rules for (and later boycotting) the region’s grand crus. Margaret Rand meets a few of the family.

Hugel at a glance

Holdings 30ha of estate vineyards plus grapes bought from another 100ha

Grape varieties Riesling, Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc, Gewurztraminer, Muscat, Sylvaner, Pinot Noir

Annual production 1 million bottles

Key personnel Marc Hugel, winemaker; Etienne Hugel, sales and exports; Jean Philippe Hugel, CEO

Exports 90% of production Wines produced Classic (including Gentil), Tradition, Jubilee, Vendange Tardive, Sélection de Grains Nobles; new Schoelhammer

Hugel Schoelhammer: The first three vintages compared

It is said – usually by the producers themselves – that there are Catholic and Protestant wines in Alsace. The former are more oxidative, forward and ebullient; the latter more reductive, austere and slower to reveal themselves. Riquewihr is a largely Protestant village, and the Hugels of Riquewihr are Lutheran. So there you have it, the style in a nutshell: Hugel wines are tight, structured, mineral and dry – unless they’re sweet.

The last point sounds obvious until you remember that for years now, Alsace sweetness levels have been rising faster than Greek borrowing. Thirty years ago, says winemaker and viticulturist Marc Hugel, the problem in Alsace was getting ripe grapes. Now the issue is avoiding overripe ones. Wines that were routinely dry are now regularly off-dry or sweet, and sweet ones are super-sweet.

To insist on dryness for anything not labelled Vendange Tardive (VT) or Sélection de Grains Nobles (SGN) is to swim against the tide. To refuse to put the words ‘Grand Cru’ on the front label when your Jubilee range comes from the grands crus of Schoenenbourg and Sporen – Hugel’s finest estate vineyards, with Jubilee wines only made in the very best vintages – is also to swim against the tide. And the irony is that Johnny Hugel had been in charge of setting the grand cru rules.

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Tasting Hugel’s Rieslings:

Johnny Hugel (his name was Jean, but the British trade renamed him) also drafted the guidelines for the 1984 regulations governing VT and SGN; before that, the German designations were used. He was an influential figure in an influential family: the Hugels, like so many wine families in Alsace, arrived during the Thirty Years’ War (1618-48) and have made wine ever since. Johnny ran the company, with his brothers André and Georges, between 1948 and 1997, when the next generation came to the fore. André still visits the office every day and is a formidable historian of Riquewihr. His mission now is to obtain fair treatment for Alsace veterans of the Second World War, who were conscripted into the German army and receive no pensions.

Johnny tramped all over Alsace with a geologist for three years, examining where the grand cru boundaries should go. ‘If the classification had been honest,’ reflects André’s son Marc, ‘it would have taken one minute, because everyone knew where the boundaries should have been.’ Instead, they were drawn generously. ‘There should probably be 20 grands crus, and the rest should be premier cru,’ says Marc’s nephew Jean Frédéric. So Hugel, having been instrumental in setting up the classification, walked away from it. Trimbach did the same; so did Léon Beyer. No Hugel wine has ever been declared as grand cru, even though many could have been.

The trouble with making a high-minded decision is that the rest of the world goes on without you. Everyone agrees the Alsace Grand Cru classification is not all it should be; but at the same time, most people accept that, overall, it has been a good thing. The decision to boycott it is clearly a difficult one to rethink, yet one wonders how much it benefits Hugel these days. In some Alsace tastings, its flagship Jubilee wines will be ranged with basic Alsace – and that is not necessarily an advantage, given that the former are tight and reticent, and the latter mostly off-dry and come-hitherish. And so Hugel’s grand cru position is under discussion.

There is something else: the best parcel of Riesling in Hugel’s Schoenenbourg holding has just been released, in April 2015, as a separate bottling called Schoelhammer. The first vintage will be 2007, which neatly gets around the grand cru problem, because if you want to declare a grand cru, you must apply to do so before the vintage. So it won’t be. But it is splendid.

What makes it so good? Tension, in a word. If you want another word, minerality. Schoenenbourg is impressive to look at – it rises steeply from just outside the old walls of Riquewihr – but it’s not homogeneous. Schoelhammer is a perfect kernel of 30 south-facing rows mid-slope, and it was the first Hugel parcel to go organic. ‘It’s clear to the taste when a wine is terroir-driven or varietal,’ says Etienne; and it’s clear here.

The world moves on. They’re all keen to stress that they’re not averse to change; it’s just that they like to do things gradually – change the details rather than take U-turns. The Jubilee range, named to mark the company’s 350th year in 1989, is being renamed because few people know what it refers to; each wine will now have a separate name.

Does this, along with the Schoelhammer launch, constitute a grand cru coming-out? ‘It’s a terroir coming-out,’ says Jean Frédéric. They’re going to make more of a fuss about their undoubtedly excellent vineyards. And Marc is the person to talk to about these: geology has become a passion of his. Did you know that the old vineyard roads in Alsace follow geological fault lines? There are umpteen faults running southwest to northeast, with other, transverse faults running across them. It’s as complicated as the Côte d’Or, which explains why the soils are so many, and so varied.

Obsession with precision

Marc’s winemaking style has evolved over the years. He loves finesse and elegance, and he doesn’t want the mechanics of winemaking to show in the wines, but in 2007 he started doing a little battonage (lees stirring) – not much, and only when it suits the year – just to open up the wines. And he wants absolute accuracy in everything. When he picks for SGN these days, it’s individual berries, not whole clusters. ‘The first 15 minutes of picking [for SGN] are the most important,’ he emphasises, for pinpoint accuracy and purity in the final wine. ‘If you want the best possible wine, you have to be incredibly precise.’

Sweet wines – VT and SGN, and especially the former – are flagships for Hugel. ‘Gewurztraminer VT is 90% of our sweet wine production,’ says Etienne, Jean Frédéric’s father. ‘People confuse sweet wines with dessert wines; it goes beyond pairing them with dessert.’

But the same climate change that has made the general run of Alsace wine sweeter than it used to be has made VT and SGN less exceptional. When Jean Frédéric lists great sweet-wine vintages, he names 1989, 1997, 2000 – then 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011. Yes, they are more selective than ever, make less per year than they used to, and, says Etienne, sweet wine is still only 2% of their production, but still. Great sweet wine is no longer a rarity in the world – and world demand has not risen. ‘We sell all we produce,’ says Etienne, but one might surmise that shouting a bit louder about the rest of the range might not be a bad thing.

The world moves on. If Schoelhammer is the future, then it works.

Margaret Rand was the 2013 Louis Roederer Feature Writer of the Year for her articles in Decanter

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The 13th generation has just started working at this famous Alsace producer, notable for setting the rules for (and later boycotting) the region’s grand crus. Margaret Rand meets a few of the family.

Hugel: a timeline

1639 Hans Ulrich Hugel, who settled in Riquewihr during the Thirty Years’ War, is made freeman of the city

1672 Hans Ulrich’s son builds a house in Rue des Cordiers; the shield he carved over the door still appears on Hugel labels

1802 Earliest existing records of Hugel owning land in Sporen and Schoenenbourg. Earlier records were destroyed during wars

1865 & 1876 The last Hugel to be a cooper as well as a grower builds, and dates, casks that are still in use today

1871 Alsace annexed by Germany after the Franco-Prussian War

1902 Frédéric Emile Hugel buys the buildings in Riquewihr where the company is still based

1911 Hugel starts bottling its own wines

1918

Alsace is returned to France under the Treaty of Versailles

1940 Alsace is occuped by Germany

1945 Alsace is returned to France

1948 Jean Hugel’s son Johnny (right, with mother Mimi and brother André) joins the company. Hugel begins working with other growers

1980 Hugel is the first company in Alsace to introduce temperaturecontrolled fermentation

Early 1980s Jean, as president of the Alsace Grand Cru delimitation committee, was charged with drawing the boundaries of the new grands crus. INAO also asked him to draw up rules for VT and SGN wines

1982 Marc starts to take over as winemaker

1983 Etienne starts to take over as head of sales

1984 VT and SGN regulations come into force

1989 The Jubilee range is launched at Hugel’s 350th anniversary party

1992 The decree governing Grands Crus Sporen (above) and Schoenenbourg come into force; Hugel decides not to use the designation

1994 Jean Philippe takes over as CEO

2009 Organic viticulture starts in Schoelhammer. Now, most Hugel vineyards are farmed organically

2011 Jean Frédéric, (above left with Etienne) joins the company, initially running the tasting room

2014 Marc André joins the company

2015 Schoelhammer is launched

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