Red wine from Pinot Gris
For many years Paul McKirdy was cellar master at Zind-Humbrecht, where Jolene Hunter was in charge of exports.
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Securely packed and insured against breakage and loss.
One click adds all six to your basket. You can remove or swap single wines there.
One click adds them all to your basket. You can remove or swap single wines there.
- Samares et Strobiles 202431,50 €
- Le Bois des Ormes 202336,00 €
- Le Jardin de la Source VdF 202436,00 €
- Sous les Coudriers VdF 202427,00 €
- Les Forêts Oubliées VdF 202427,00 €
- Les Pentes Sèches VdF 202331,50 €
- Samares et Strobiles 202431,50 €
- Le Bois des Ormes 202336,00 €
- Le Jardin de la Source VdF 202436,00 €
Our pick
The sommelier Christina Hilker strongly advises decanting the Samares et Strobiles, after which she found orange zest, cranberry and cool graphite notes. Of the five, I would order this one first and pour it into a carafe an hour before the meal.
From the wine letter
For many years Paul McKirdy was cellar master at Zind-Humbrecht, where Jolene Hunter was in charge of exports. Today the two of them make a Pinot Gris whose label reads “Vin Rouge”. It ferments on its skins for several weeks, just like their Pinot Noir. “For us it is perfectly natural to make a red wine from Pinot Gris,” their importer quotes them as saying. No appellation in Alsace provides for such a wine.
With the 2023 vintage they took over the Zellenberg vineyards of Marc Tempé, who had already been farming them biodynamically. They have kept it that way. The vines on their 3.5 hectares have an average age of about 45 years. Picking starts as soon as the grapes have reached a pH of 3.2, with little regard for potential alcohol. The 2024s come in at 11.5 to 12 per cent. As Christoph Raffelt’s portrait of the estate puts it, the whites are “pressed by the Champagne method and fermented by the Burgundy method”. All their wines are bottled as Vin de France in Burgundy bottles. We have eight of them, six of which come together in one set, while the three Pinots also have a set to themselves.
P.S. Les Pentes Sèches 2023, the sixth wine in the larger set, is a Pinot Gris from the Rimelsberg and Kronenburg sites. Christoph Raffelt writes that the wine recalls “wet stone and petrichor”, in other words the scent of rain on dry earth. Approx. €31.50.
The wines in this letter
It takes its name from the fruit of the elms and larches that grow by its vineyards. The colour is a slightly hazy garnet. It smells of bright red berries, ginger and spiced pear, and has fine tannins. With black pudding with apple on mashed potato, or with a mushroom ragout.
31,50 €incl. VAT
This Pinot Noir comes from vines planted in 1963 and, after fermentation, matures for a year in Burgundy barrels that are more than ten years old. Cherry and strawberry dominate the nose, with an earthy note beneath. On the palate it is fresh and long, yet fuller than the nose suggests. With duck breast with cherry jus, or with a porcini risotto.
36,00 €incl. VAT
Until the late 1960s the small vineyard just outside the village was a vegetable garden with its own spring, and today vines more than fifty years old grow there on deep, cold limestone marl. In the glass Christina Hilker found almonds, soy sauce and baguette with salted butter, along with sea air and stone. With sole in beurre blanc.
36,00 €incl. VAT
The vines grow on Oligocene limestone marl, facing north on the lower slope of the hill that is home to the Grand Cru Sonnenglanz. The hazy, pale-gold wine shows pear, quince and anise; it is salty and has very fresh acidity. With ginger and lemongrass prawns.
27,00 €incl. VAT
The name refers to the forgotten forests, now recalled here only in the names of the vineyards. The vines grow in the Harth, a cool site at 290 metres, where a thin layer of moraine gravel lies over the limestone marl. A delicate spritz carries bright apple, white peach and verbena, joined by spice and a pleasant tannic grip. With Flammkuchen.
27,00 €incl. VAT