The Volcanic Secrets of Alsace

Adecade ago, a Riesling from Alsace--the mountainous French province that shares part of the Rhine with Germany--would have been easy to describe: a medium-bodied, bone-dry white wine with fresh acidity and subtle apple and peach aromas.

Since then, there has been a revolution. A new generation of winemakers has not only improved the quality but extended the stylistic range of Alsace Riesling. Such producers as Zind-Humbrecht’s Olivier Humbrecht, Domaine Weinbach’s Catherine and Laurence Faller (with the help of their mother, Colette), Marcel Deiss and Marc Kreydenweiss enjoy critical and commercial success with Rieslings that have pushed the limits of what this grape can produce far beyond anything winemakers of the previous generation could have imagined.

The wines have become much more intense and powerful at all these estates.

This is not to say that the traditional style of Alsace Riesling has been abandoned. The renowned house of F.E. Trimbach in Ribeauville has refined this style ever further during recent years under Pierre Trimbach, a winemaker of the younger generation. Its top wines, Clos Ste. Hune (from a vineyard that lies next to the Rosacker grand cru of Hunawihr) and Cuvee Frederic Emile (made from a blend of Riesling wines from the Geisberg and Osterberg grand cru sites of Ribeauville) define the classic style of Alsatian Riesling.

“Our best wines come from vineyards with a lime-rich soil and therefore need several years of bottle aging for the bouquet to develop fully,” Trimbach said. The company therefore releases its wines only when they are reaching their best form.

For the Clos Ste. Hune Riesling, this means six years after the harvest, an age at which most California Chardonnays are far past their peak. The stunning 1990 St. Hune that comes onto the market this fall is packed with peach fruit and is very rich but completely dry, with a mineral aftertaste that goes on and on. Magnificent now, it should age as well as the great 1971, which is still vigorous and elegant.

Nevertheless, the real story of Alsace in the ‘90s is the new directions taken by the younger generation.

Nobody has done more to put Alsace wines in the headlines during the last 10 years than Domaine Zind-Humbrecht in Turckheim, near Colmar in the heart of the Alsatian wine country. Since 1989, the first vintage that Olivier Humbrecht firmly put his stamp on his family’s wines, this young winemaker has made a series of Rieslings from the grand cru vineyard sites Brand and Rangen that reveal a hitherto unknown side of the grape’s soul.

With their mouth-filling opulence and seductive aromas of spice and overripe fruit, they are like a vinous translation of Baudelaire’s “Les Fleurs du Mal” or Debussy’s “Reflets dans l’Eau.”

In the wines from these two grand cru vineyards, Riesling achieves a rampant sensuality that contrasts dramatically with its image as a light, flowery wine. Purists may complain that they are no longer really dry in the Alsatian tradition, but who cares when the result is as irresistible as this?

Olivier’s father, Leonard, who is still active in the domaine, was instrumental in obtaining the grand cru vineyard classification that has been progressively introduced in the region since 1983.

During my first visit to the domaine in 1987, well before it moved from cramped cellars in Wintzenheim to an aggressively modern facility among the vines of Turckheim, I was amazed by the distinct personalities of the wines from each vineyard site. The Rieslings from the Brand vineyard, near Turckheim, have a lush pineapple and ripe peachy fruit when young, which masks the firm structure beneath. With age, opulence slowly gives way to a grand elegance.

Passion fruit and minerals mark the Rieslings from the volcanic soil of the Rangen, the southernmost and most precipitous vineyard of Alsace, close to the town of Thann. The 1988 Rangen Riesling shows how this mineral character gains an almost pungent intensity with bottle aging.

During the last few years, Zind-Humbrecht has faced ever more intense competition from Domaine Marcel Deiss in Bergheim, a short distance north of Colmar. Jean-Michel Deiss is a fanatic and, like Olivier and Leonard Humbrecht, the object of his obsession is terroir--the soil and micro-climate of the vineyard.

The complex geology of the hillside vineyards close to the historic towns of Riquewihr and Bergheim provides Deiss with the ideal basis for demonstrating how the character of great wines is dictated by terroir. The gypsum marl of the grand cru Schoenenburg vineyard of Riquewihr gives his deepest, most majestic wines, while the lime-rich clay of the grand cru Altenberg vineyard of Bergheim results in wines with more charm and refinement.

The 1993 and 1994 vintages leap well above Deiss’ past achievements, marrying vibrant acidity to the power and richness that have long been the hallmarks of his wines. The result is an explosion of aromas and flavors that is almost overwhelming.

The 1993 Schoenenburg Riesling fills the mouth with ravishing flavors of summer fruits, followed by an extremely long, clean aftertaste. The 1994 Altenberg Riesling has apricot and grapefruit flavors of an almost supernatural intensity. Its acidity makes the fruit seem to shimmer as the wine flows over the palate.

As I tasted this staggering wine in the domaine’s chilly cellar, Deiss drew diagrams on the face of the barrel with a piece of chalk to explain how the wine’s acidity was the result of forcing the vines’ roots to penetrate deep into the soil. “This is a new type of wine,” he said, “and it is only this kind which interests me now.” It sounded remarkably like an artist denouncing his earlier works.

The wines made by Colette Faller and her daughters, Catherine and Laurence, at Domaine Weinbach share the power of those from Deiss and Humbrecht but combine it with grace and delicacy.

The Fallers work out of an imposing complex of historic buildings: the ex-Cistercian monastic property of Weinbach, close to Kaysersberg. Although the winemaking methods have hardly changed during the century the family has owned the property, Colette Faller introduced a practice of extremely late harvesting that created superb wines such as the Riesling Cuvee Ste. Catherine, named after both St. Catherine and Colette’s elder daughter.

The grapes for these wines invariably come from the grand cru Schlossberg sites of Kientzheim and Kaysersberg. The 1994 vintage gave a model Riesling Ste. Catherine, its rich flavors of white peach and pink grapefruit precisely matched by a silky acidity. Colette Faller’s description of her Rieslings as “ravishing and intellectual” perfectly fits this wine.

A complete contrast, but no less revolutionary, are the wines from Marc Kreydenweiss of Andlau, close to the northern end of the Alsace wine land. Kreydenweiss, a complex, introverted personality, approaches winemaking metaphysically, as it were.

The obvious qualities of good wines--richness, harmony, fruit and so forth--hardly interest him. Instead, terroir is all; the unique qualities produced by a specific piece of land and the weather of a particular growing season are what fascinate him. The Kastelberg, the only top vineyard in Alsace with a slate soil like that of the Mosel Valley of Germany, is Kreydenweiss’ first love.

The terraces of the Kastelberg rise sharply from the Andlau, a stream that runs past his cellars; he cools the casks of wine, slowing down fermentation, simply by piping stream water through the cellar. The combination of biodynamic cultivation (a form of organic farming based on the ideas of German philosopher Rudolf Steiner) and fermentations that often last for more than six months are the keys he uses to unlock the vinous secrets of the Kastelberg’s soil.

The 1993 Kastelberg Riesling is still as tightly wound as a coiled spring, its mineral flavors rising in intensity as it flows across your palate, ending in a crescendo that continues long after you swallow. It is not a wine that jumps out of the glass at you, but then that is not Kreydenweiss’ aim.

“Today we judge wine too much by the bouquet,” he said. “That is why so many mediocre wines with stacks of oak impress all the journalists.” His wine style takes the common goal of Alsace’s new generation of winemakers--back to the roots, back to the soil--to its logical extreme.

* Pigott, who lives in Berlin, is at work on a book about German wines.