Some Great Alsace
Riesling for you, my great american/english readers !
"My ultimate exemplar/benchmark in this matter
remains Albert Mann's 2010 Schlossberg, a tremendous and intense wine, its
destiny preordained (a minimum of 15-30 years, in my opinion). I had the
opportunity to drink it and describe it in the summer of 2012:
"It is metallic in color, a clear mirror, silver
lamé; its nose starts out with restraint, giving the impression of a huge
field of wheat. On the palate, this wine takes the form of an ardent stream
with wild intensity and great power, almost vegetal, but lacking in spiciness.
[...] An hour or so after we open the bottle, the wine settles; to the eye, it
increasingly reveals itself in a stylish gray. The nose also experiences
an increased intensity; once more, eucalyptus is brought to mind;
we imagine a blackberry bush deprived of its thorns. But it is on the palate
that the wine's mad potential is laid bare. Lots of white fruits open up before
us, and, as they do, we get the impression that they are a little squeezed in,
too big for their armor, which has fortunately been pierced".
"I will never forget a particular exemplar:
the 1990 Fréderic-Emile – by Trimbach, of
course – a bottle we opened in late 2008. I'm pretty
sure it has not changed to date, unless it's just gotten
even better... at any rate, this is what I said at the
time:
"Nothing enhances this wine as much as maturation
or, in this particular case, its coming of age. Indeed,
these 18 years in the bottlepromise us the most precise essence
of the terroir." [...] The nose: a whole
world opens up before our amazed senses, a clear idea
of what we might call petroleum where great
Alsace Rieslings are concerned. This term might
understandably discourage a novice, but it simply refers to the pinnacle of a complex freshness, of the purity of a mineral bouquet".
Read more HERE and discover some other marvellous Alsace Riesling ! (From Schlumberger, Muré, Kientzler)
