Tag: alsace

A WONDERFUL, ‘HISTORIC’ WHITE FROM ALSACE

There are many less traveled paths in the wine world where some truly special things can happen.  We feel it is our duty as wine merchants to point things like that out for you consideration.  Sometimes we wonder why we do it.  Guess it’s just the wide-eyed geekiness that we still haven’t lost after all these years.  Take this wine.  A Alsace white made by a cooperative without a varietal designation for over $30? What next?  Hungarian Cabernet Franc? Oh wait, we already did that.  Orange wines from Georgia (the country not the state)? Yeah, did that too.  If it’s worth knowing about, we’re on it, and this striking little gem is definitely something worth knowing about.

We’ll start with the producer.  Cave de Ribeauvillé is a well-run cooperative in Alsace.  In their words, Cave de Ribeauvillé covers a unique vineyard of 235 hectares with 8 Grands Crus and numerous high-value terroirs. The entire estate is managed by a quality charter which guarantees manual harvesting, strict control of yields, work in the vineyard using sustainable management or organic farming.  All the grapes are brought to the press in whole bunches and the juice then flows by simple gravity into the vats. Thanks to state-of-the-art equipment, the wines from Cave de Ribeauvillé respect the purity of the grape variety and the identity of each terroir. The wines are frank, straight, fresh, fruity and express all the richness of the great Alsatian terroirs.

In other words this isn’t some local cooperative just phoning it in as some do and we have brought to your attention a number of high functioning operations like this over the years like Produttori di Barbaresco, Terlano, and Domaine Wachau to name a few.  This is our first experience with Cave de Ribeauvillé but, if they can do things like this, we need to dig a little deeper.  The cooperative itself dates back to 1895.

As to the wine itself, this is a stylistic take on the work of Alsace icon Marcell Diess.  Deiss’s thing is to highlight terroirs in great vineyards.  In this mindset, he does not highlight specific varietals but harvests the various grapes from a vineyard as a field blend and identifies them by the name of the vineyard only.  These wines are dazzling and highly sought after, as well as not cheap.  The Clos de Zahnacker is planted to Riesling, Pinot Gris and Gewurztraminer. 

The history of this Clos is pretty interesting.  The oldest writings date its origins back to the 8th century, to the time when Benedictine monks divided their time between prayer and work on the land.   The creation of this walled vineyard is attributed to monk-knight Martin Zahn after returning from the crusades. It was a subject of dispute among the Lords of Ribeauville in the Middle Ages and was said to be a favorite of the Sun King Louis XIV.  It has been a part of the Cave  de Ribeauvillé since 1965.

The nose of the Cave de Ribeauvillé Clos du Zahnacker 2015 speaks of lemon zest, tea, mineral and stone fruits with faint hints of lychee.  In the mouth is it rich, rather ample, a little exotic, yet with just the right amount of lift to support its frame and maintain appropriate freshness.  It almost feels the weight of a vendage tardive but isn’t particularly sweet and it is loaded with character.  At age 8 it shows no signs of fading and has palate coating extract.  We’ve had a few nice surprises from the 2015s recently.

We found one review from Wine Enthusiast that kind of captures the essence of this grand but surprising effort, “Chalk, chamomile tincture and dried lemon peel have immense lift on the nose of this wine. They also pervade the bright, balm-like but concentrated palate with their aromatic intensity. This wine is fluid and layered, showing signs of evolution that is set to continue for many years. Gentle sweetness balances the bracing freshness and makes this a real experience. The finish is off dry but very balanced and long. Drink until 2040…94 points.”

We don’t have a lot of it but we had to tell the story.

THE MAGIC OF ALSACE

If you saw the Beck-Hartweg Pinot Gris Cuvee de l’Ours 2007 just sitting on the shelf, you would likely pay it no mind. To be honest, looking at the vintage, it wouldn’t be our first grab either. Too old? Tired? We would have been wrong. One of the sad things we have noticed is that folks don’t care about Alsace as much as they used to. We sold remarkable amounts back in the 90s, and the area achieved stature thanks to a significant run of great juice from the likes of Olivier Humbrecht and the ladies at Domaine Weinbach. But, sadly, Alsace as a subject doesn’t get much attention in the wine press any more. It is particularly unfortunate at a time when the varied Asian and Asian influenced cuisines are widely appreciated on the food scene as these wines pair superbly (….getting hungry).

In any case, Beck-Hartweg is a fine producer who farms organically. We have been working with this domaine for a while and the presentation that day included several ‘older’ bottles that all showed surprisingly well. Do Alsace wines typically age well? The good ones certainly can and this one did!

It will be a little difficult to paint the picture since very few folks have the opportunity to experience a wine like this, thus making for no point of reference. But we’re going to give it our best shot secure in the knowledge, if it doesn’t work, there are lot of good Thai and Vietnamese places around here where we could do some expanded research ourselves. We won’t mind but, really, this is one of those rare opportunities.

In spite of the date, we just bought this. The 2007 vintage was very good in Alsace (one of the best since the turn of the century). The nose is an inviting melange of well meshed floral, white stone fruit, and quince nuances. All of that comes through on the palate accented with some yellow stone fruit and a delicate touch of minerality. The texture was remarkable, almost fat and unctuous but with everything sitting atop perfectly proportioned gentle acidity that did its job without getting in the way. The richness on the palate gave the impression of sweetness but the wine wasn’t actually sweet.

All in all, this was a captivating, soulful, and even a little bit cerebral effort. Only something from Alsace could have been exactly like this, the bottle age, those unique terroirs and deceptive viscosity making for a one-of-a-kind wine experience. An exciting wine and proof that Alsace should still be a ‘thing’.