Alsace in Autumn

Hello,

Smoke, quince, a hint of tannin.
This is the taste of a Pinot Gris from the red limestone above Turckheim, eight years old, with 1.7 grams of sugar.
You drink it in October with mushrooms, with pumpkin, and in November with Martinmas goose.
And it is dry.
It was not always so. Twenty years ago a Pinot Gris from Alsace might be a dry wine or a dessert, depending on the house and the vintage, and the label gave no clue which you were getting. Back then, says Olivier Humbrecht, the sweet wines were the easiest to sell.
Alsace has gone dry, and since the 2021 vintage it says so on the label.

Three houses show what that means: Zind-Humbrecht, Albert Mann and Trapet. Two cases, and the difference between them is Grand Cru:

Case 1 · The Wine Route

Crémant · Pinot Blanc · Pinot Gris · Gewurztraminer · Riesling · Pinot Noir

Case 2 · Five Grands Crus, One Clos

Rangen · Goldert · Hengst · Clos de la Faille · Furstentum · Schoenenbourg

One click adds all six to your basket.
You can remove or swap individual bottles there, including between the two cases.

Turckheim: Zind-Humbrecht

Olivier Humbrecht returned to the estate in April 1989, aged twenty-six, and that same year became the first French Master of Wine. He came to biodynamics by way of manure. The muck he bought in would not rot down, it “smelt like a septic tank”, and in the laboratory he found eight different antibiotics in it. The house has been biodynamic since 1997, and since 2005 an Ardennes horse called Nikita has pulled the plough. “Minerality doesn’t smell”, writes Humbrecht, and it cannot be faked. “It might be a good thing,” he says, “if Alsace loses 30% of its surface, to focus only on the best vineyards.” That is easy to say with the Rangen behind you. It is true all the same.

Thann, the volcano

The Rangen is the southernmost Grand Cru in Alsace, on greywacke and tuff, the compacted ash of a volcano. The average gradient is ninety per cent. Ploughing is done by winch. Léonard Humbrecht bought the Clos Saint-Urbain in 1977, when nobody wanted steep slopes because the plain yielded more. Today the house owns a quarter of the Rangen. The chronicle of Thann records that in 1431 the harvest was so large that they mixed wine into the mortar. The 2026 harvest will be one of the smallest in years.

Goldert and Hengst, two limestones

The Humbrechts come from Gueberschwihr, where they have made wine since 1620. The Goldert above the village is the only site in Alsace whose subsoil is entirely oolitic limestone, made up of tiny round grains. Since 2019 Zind-Humbrecht has grown only Muscat there. A few kilometres north, above Wintzenheim, lies the Hengst, a marly limestone that the Abbey of Murbach mentioned as early as the ninth century. Here Gewurztraminer vines that Émile Zind planted around 1950 grow next to a parcel said to date from the 1920s. Old massal selection: thick skins, more pepper than perfume.

Wettolsheim: Albert Mann

Albert Mann had gout and was not allowed to drink white wine. So in 1973 he planted Pinot Noir for his own use, and because he liked to treat himself, he put it in the best parcels. That is how Antoine Barthelmé, who runs the estate today, tells it. Fifty years later The Wine Advocate gave the Pinot Noir Les Saintes Claires 2022 a hundred points. That wine is gone. The Clos de la Faille, an extension of the Hengst, is still here. The brothers Maurice and Jacky Barthelmé ran the estate from the 1980s. Maurice married Albert’s daughter, Marie-Claire, and Antoine is Jacky’s son. Jacky says: “I like finesse. For me it is the hardest thing to achieve. Richness and power are easy.” And: “Today we bring in grapes my grandparents would have dreamt of.” In 2026 the Barthelmés began picking on 18 August, earlier than ever. Antoine writes of small, concentrated berries.

Riquewihr: Trapet

Andrée Trapet is the only child of a winegrowing family from Riquewihr. A little over twenty years ago she took over her parents’ estate: under two hectares and a single Grand Cru, the Sonnenglanz. Her husband is Jean-Louis Trapet of Gevrey-Chambertin, Burgundy during the week, Riquewihr at weekends, and biodynamic from the start. Since 2017 their son Pierre has run the Alsace side, and Louis joined him in 2018. “I learnt to walk in Alsace”, says Pierre. And: “In the Côte de Nuits, nature is civilised. In Alsace it is wilder, with the Vosges, the forest.” Since 2021 every vine has had its own stake. More than fifty thousand stakes, says his father. The harvests in Gevrey and Riquewihr used to be two weeks apart. Now they almost coincide. And every back label carries a scale from one to four, dry to sweet. The Trapets had one before the law required it.

What to open first?

When you open the case: the Crémant first, cold. Then the Pinot Blanc Auxerrois and the Riesling from Kientzheim at ten degrees. Open the Heimbourg half an hour before serving. The Chapelle 1441 last, lightly chilled, with whatever comes to the table.

The Wine Route:
1× Crémant d'Alsace Extra Brut 2023 → Extra Brut, for tarte flambée
1× Pinot Blanc Auxerrois 2023 → pear, quince, chervil
1× Pinot Gris Heimbourg 2018 → smoke, toast, eight years old
1× Gewurztraminer Turckheim 2024 → pepper, dried fruit, bone dry
1× Riesling Kientzheim K.T.Z.M. 2021 → ivy and lemon zest
1× Chapelle 1441 rouge 2022 → cherry with bite

And “Five Grands Crus, One Clos”: start with the Clos de la Faille, which is open now. Leave the Muscat until spring, and give the Rangen an hour in a decanter. The Hengst and the Furstentum are for Christmas, the Schoenenbourg for the year after.

The Wine Route 6 wines · approx. €159 →

Five Grands Crus, One Clos 6 wines · approx. €436 →

One click adds all six to your basket. You can remove or swap individual bottles there.

We have more than a hundred and eighty wines from Alsace in the shop, from Zind-Humbrecht, Albert Mann and Trapet. Three that are in neither case: the Auxerrois Rotenberg 2021, which Humbrecht bottled on its own for the first time in the frost year, beeswax and honey, very dry, approx. €37. The Riesling Rangen Clos Saint-Urbain 2014, the only wine the house declared from the Rangen that year, twelve years old, smoke and peat, approx. €97. And Trapet’s Ambre Orange 2022, Gewurztraminer given a month on its skins in amphora, approx. €29.

Warm regards from Berlin,

Lisa and the team at
Living Wines

P.S. Dry is not everything. An Alsace of nothing but dry wines, Humbrecht said as early as 2011, would be “to throw the baby out with the bathwater”, depriving the region of some of its greatest wines. Up to 2006 the house had made a Sélection de Grains Nobles from Riesling only three times: 1989, 1998 and 2006. Of the third, the Riesling Brand Grand Cru SGN 2006, we still have half-bottles. A hundred and eighty-five grams of sugar, nine grams of acidity, twenty years old and, according to the domaine, in its drinking window until 2036. Technically very sweet, writes the house, and you would hardly know it. With an aged Munster, or a plum tart. Approx. €78.

The Wine Route 6 wines · approx. €159 →

Five Grands Crus, One Clos 6 wines · approx. €436 →