Region At a Glance: Alsace

Alsace is located in northeastern France, on the border with Germany. In fact, Alsace has gone through several changes of political hand in the last four hundred years, which accounts for the bizarre, yet delicious, blending of French and German styles in food, language, architecture, and wine. The latter, our focus today, is dominated by full-bodied white wines, in tall slender bottles. There are in fact more than nine grape varieties grown in Alsace, but the region’s most noble wines are made by the following four: Riesling, Gewurztraminer, Pinot Gris, and Muscat.

Though Alsatian blends do exist (they are called “Edelzwicker”; note the Germanic touch), the majority of Alsace’s wines are varietals – that is, the wine consists of only one grape variety. Alsatian wines are well-structured, food-friendly, and cover a wide range of prices; to top it all off, they are labeled varietally. We wine buyers in the New World are accustomed to this manner of labeling: that is, we buy Chardonnay from California and Malbec from Argentina, as opposed to “white Sonoma County” and “red Mendoza”. The rest of France labels its wines according to region and/or producer; the fact that Alsace labels its varietals “Riesling”, “Pinot Gris”, and so on, makes buying them in wine shops and in restaurants easy, even if you are not familiar with the region’s producers.

If you have the opportunity, I recommend that you try two of Alsace’s specialty wines: Vendage Tardive and Sélection de Grains Nobles. Vendage Tardive is French for “late harvest”; usually, harvesting happens in September or October, but for late harvest wine, grapes are left on the vine until November or December. Vines go into their winter hibernation, which shuts down metabolic activity, and the grapes begin to dehydrate. The resulting juice is much more concentrated in sugar and flavor; the sweetness of the wine, however, is very much up to the producer.

Sélection de Grains Nobles is French for “selection of noble berries”, and is wine made from grapes affected by Botrytis cinerea, aka “pourriture noble”, aka the Noble Rot. The fungus partially dries out the grapes, which concentrates the water to sugar ratio. You may recognize Botrytis cinerea from our discussion on Sauternes; Sélection de Grains Nobles too is thick, sweet, and richly flavored.

Only the four varieties mentioned above (Riesling, Gewurztraminer, Pinot Gris, and Muscat) may carry the labels Vendage Tardive and Sélection de Grains Nobles. However, if your pocketbook or preferences don’t steer you towards these styles of wine, I still hope you try an Alsatian bottle or two. Pinot Blanc is a great refreshing white wine, perfect for summer; Pinot Noir (Alsace’s only red grape!) makes a tasty rosé.

Tags: Alsace, Botrytis wine, French wine styles