Kuentz-Bas 2007 Alsace (Alsace) – Fading, which is a bit of a surprise; this was meant to be an early-drinking, fresh and friendly blend, but it’s only four years down the road at this point. Perhaps a failed seal. What’s left is semi-thick and semi-spicy, with wan structure. (6/11)
Browse Tag
alsace
Koehly green
Charles Koehly 2004 Riesling Saint Hippolyte (Alsace) – Note: a recent purchase, provenance unknown. Boring, faded, makrut lime and rocks. Pretty much over whatever it was interested in being, once. (5/11)
Hail Pfœller, well-met
Meyer-Fonné 2005 Riesling Pfœller (Alsace) – Intense but soft, present and pressing with muffled force. The finish is metallic and long. I suspect this has a while to go before it emerges from its nap. (5/11)
Ries jones
Trimbach 2001 Riesling “Réserve” (Alsace) – The “Reserve” riesling didn’t used to be available in the States, and then one year it was. One doesn’t need to investigate with a microscope the sales prospects of Alsatian wines to make a guess or two why that might be. Nonetheless, I’m pleased to see it, because the wine is measurably better than the négociant yellow label riesling. This isn’t so much apparent in the initial encounter, which mimics the regular 2001’s bright mineral polish and snappy, balanced structure, but in a finish of increasing textural interest that abandons liquidity in favor of a flowing river of crystalline particulate buzz. Despite my enthusiasm, this wine is probably at the end of its useful life. But it was a fine life, well-lived. (7/11)
Trimbach 2001 Riesling “Réserve” (Alsace) – The difference between this and the yellow négociant bottling (other than the fact that the 2001 normale is long-embalmed by now) is the wash of Trimbach-y minerality (Ribeauvillé writ rocky) and the nervosity that this has and the other only rarely achieves, and even then only in youth. There’s not a reason in the world to hold this other than morbid curiosity, as its full maturity (and then some) is already on display. (8/11)
Trimbach 2008 Riesling (Alsace) – Excitingly ripe, maybe with just the faintest touch more flesh and fat than the Trimbach “style” would suggest, but the firm grip of acidity rules all despite the extra spring in the fruit’s leap and cavort. One of the best yellow-label Trimbachs of the decade, I think (and no surprise; the more I taste, the more I think the vintage deserves its solid reputation). (6/11)
Trimbach 2004 Riesling (Alsace) – I admit I’m getting tired of drinking this wine, which I bought in a quantity that I’m finding hard to understand aside from the possibility that I bought it for someone else and never delivered it. But it’s a reliable, solid, quality performer, full of classic iron and apple steeliness, riper than the median, shot through with vivid acidity and a salty finish. (6/11)
Trimbach 2004 Riesling (Alsace) – Second verse, same as the first. (6/11)
Trimbach 2004 Riesling (Alsace) – Struggling a bit, which matches my belief (borne out by several cases of experience) that this wine is taking a good, hard look at its decline. Good bottles are at peak, bad ones are already beginning their descent. There’s still a fair wallop of steely minerality, but it’s softened around the edges and buffered at the core, and any lingering fruit is definitely experiencing red-shift. Drink up. (7/11)
Trimbach 2004 Riesling (Alsace) – Really mineral-dusty, which is of course very welcome in aging riesling, with only beginning to shed its structure. Possibly the best performance for this bottle yet, though I’d still not want to hold it much longer; I don’t think improvement is in its future. (8/11)
Spicy ’49er
Trimbach 2006 Gewurztraminer (Alsace) – Without knowing actual data, this wine has often struck me as one of the more syrupy Trimbach négociant gewurztraminers, full of density (probably both sugar and alcohol) without the necessary accompanying structure. I know acidity is a lot to expect from a gewurztraminer, but Trimbach can usually provide some. Here, they didn’t, and worse the counterpoint flavor intensities are not what I prefer either. It’s just kind of a fluffy wine, and that is a surprise, chez Trimbach. (9/11)
Trimbach 2004 Gewurztraminer (Alsace) – Just a touch past its peak, getting a little sticky rather than porcine (these grapes were never high enough quality to achieve the latter), but still delivering a lot of correct gewurztraminerishness in as dry a package as can be found outside frigid vintages anymore. (7/11)
Trimbach 2004 Gewurztraminer (Alsace) – Solid yet fraying. Peach, apricot, cashew, adhesion, but the acidity that binds it all together is separating from the whole. (7/11)
Trimbach 2004 Gewurztraminer (Alsace) – A solid performance, just a bit more porcine than most recent bottles (which have leaned on their peach and nut characters), and that’s to the good. (8/11)
Trimbach 2004 Gewurztraminer (Alsace) – Hinting at bacon (more of a glazed bacon than something purely porcine or smoky), but still relying principally and very nearly solely on a white apricot sort of fruit (or perhaps white peach…really, it doesn’t matter) for what depth it retains. (9/11)
Trimbach 2004 Gewurztraminer (Alsace) – Solid in form, liquid in function, showing stone fruit with a touch of cashew oil, and a little bit of dilution on the finish. This story is coming to an end…not immediately, but not too many more years hence, either. (9/11)
Alten states
Blanck 2002 Gewurztraminer Altenbourg (Alsace) – Best bottle in a while, fulsome and rich. Copper-jacketed spiced peach, granulated crystal, swirly without being discombobulated. Fun stuff. (6/11)
Blanck 2002 Gewurztraminer Altenbourg (Alsace) – A slightly shrunken cork that feeds down into the bottle in reaction to the screw, which I interpret as the potential for advanced aging. And indeed, this is more golden and advanced than other recent bottles, yet all to the better…which gives me great hope for the remaining case or so in the cellar (this was an inventory closeout at giveaway prices a few years ago). Lushly lycheed, sticky without being overbearing or overtly sweet (though it isn’t dry, mind), spicy and fulsome. Really delicious, and absolutely the best bottle yet of what was a fair quantity. I expect proper aging will yield equal pleasures with more interesting structure. (6/11)
Blanck 2002 Gewurztraminer Altenbourg (Alsace) – Back to the indifferent sort of “should I come out? should I keep sleeping?” sticky peach character this exhibited from about year three (from release) though last year or so, which is a retreat from the more interesting…albeit variable…dalliances with maturity and/or damage that recent bottles have provided. The presence of the wine has increased on a fairly steady incline, however, and I’m still optimistic about the prospects. Not for greatness, which this wine will never achieve (it lacks the structure), but for additive complexity. (10/11)
Herren the dog
Zind-Humbrecht 2001 Riesling Herrenweg de Turckheim (Alsace) – Liquefied vineyard dust, bronzed orange, molten amber. What firmness there was has been overtaken by lushness. Fully, fulsomely mature. (5/11)
Zind-Humbrecht 2001 Riesling Herrenweg de Turckheim (Alsace) – Very slightly edgier than the previous bottle, but still a copper-jacketed exercise in ambered snow globe, swirling with dust. I do like this wine in its blocky, steroidal bodybuilder way, but absolutely do not hold it any longer. (5/11)
Baby baumer
J. Nusbaumer Alisier Eau-de-Vie (Alsace) – What I’ve learned, as an enthusiastic alisier amateur (in the French sense of that word), is that this spirit can be taken in fruity or floral directions. I prefer the latter, especially as it is so often paired with a delicacy so rare in this category of spirits. But this, a sweet and pretty berry version, is good too. Hyper-pure, as if infused with blue glacial ice, with a somewhat indefinable fruit character somewhere in a realm between Rainier cherries, dragon fruit, mirabelle plums, and one of those toxic-looking white things you find on mountain hikes but don’t dare eat. Boisterous. (5/11)
Alten brown
Blanck 2002 Gewurztraminer Altenbourg (Alsace) – Hollowing, which is worrisome as I own a fair amount of this (still). On the other hand, this has been all over the map for years, so who knows what the next bottle will bring? It’s more peach and cashew than lychee or pork, there’s a steel that’s more present than before, but the center is decidedly not what it was. (5/11)
Ries jones
Trimbach 2004 Riesling (Alsace) – After a few disappointing bottles, a return to form. That form? Dusty steel rods. (5/11)