Alsace Riesling: Comparing grand cru sites

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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