Alsace: Don’t Miss a Trick

The old excuses won’t suffice. Yes, today’s wine lovers do indeed understand that these wines aren’t German. We may not like flute-shaped bottles, but we can cope if the wine inside is rivetingly good; and cultural traditions matter too. Drink Alsace from any glass you like. 

Most ambitious Alsace wines are now dry -- and there are indeed label indications if that’s not the case. Alsace offers blends as well as varietal wines: there are more than you’d think, and they’re better than you imagine. Few wines are food-friendlier than these, especially with exotic dishes. 

No, the Grand Cru system isn’t a failure; its success is just beginning to become apparent, and it will eventually dazzle the wine world. If you want terroir in a glass, it’s easier to find it here than in Burgundy: just buy finely crafted Rieslings from leading Grand Cru or lieu-dit sites with contrasting soil types.  If these things matter to you, most great Alsace domains practice either organics or biodynamics. France’s most thoughtful and questioning wine growers cluster in Alsace.   

You don’t even have to be a hedgie or an oligarch to buy the region’s finest wines -- and they don’t necessarily need ageing, either. If you crave value, Alsace is where you’ll find many of France’s best co-operatives.You prefer diversity? Show me another French region whose white wines can offer as many contrasting aromas, flavors, balances, textures and … experiences as Alsace. If you want complexity matched with reliability in food-friendly white wine, Alsace’s greatest merchant houses have no rivals anywhere in France, or anywhere around the world, either. Alsace, in sum, offers compelling inducements to wine lovers. We’re missing out.

Let’s just unpick a few of these assertions. Take blends, for example – something I care deeply about, since I believe they engender nuance and complexity. There are two ways to make a blend with total liberty within the appellation framework in Alsace, either under the name Edelzwicker or by simply making a wine called Alsace and nothing more. Jean-Michel Deiss, for example, makes a fine ’Alsace’ blend from 13 different grape varieties, and growers including Kirrenbourg and Mochel use Edelzwicker creatively. Gentil, by contrast, must be based on at least 50 percent of Riesling, Muscat, Gewurztraminer and/or Pinot Gris balanced by Sylvaner, Chasselas and/or Pinot Blanc. Hugel’s Gentil, tentatively revived by the company in 1993 from historical origins, was such a success that, within 20 years of the relaunch, it already accounted for 40 per cent of sales. 

Few realize that anyone buying a bottle of Alsace Pinot Blanc or Muscat is usually buying a blend. Most Pinot Blanc includes ‘the grape that dare not speak its name’ (Auxerrois), and much Muscat is a blend of Muscat à Petits Grains Blanc and the mixed-parentage Muscat d’Ottonel (only one-quarter true Muscat). Sparkling Crémant is usually a blend. Even at the Grand Cru level, too, blends are now possible – thanks to the legislative changes of 2001 (which gave Grand Cru ‘gestion locale’ or self-administering status) and 2011 (which made every Grand Cru a separate AOC). So far, two have taken that step: Altenberg de Bergheim (blends must be at least 50% Riesling) and Kaefferkopf (blends must be at least 60% Gewurztraminer).

Is my terroir claim for Alsace exaggerated? Consider this. Burgundy’s Côte d’Or, always the global reference for terroir comparisons, is a region with a single soil type: limestone. The differences between, for example, its Premier Cru climats are nuances. Observable, yes, and deliciously calibrated over the 1,000 years of development the region has undergone, but nuances nonetheless, and usually far less palpable in its wines than the thumbprints of grower and vintage. Alsace, by contrast, is one of France’s three most complex wine regions in terms of soil origin: the WSG Study Manual lists 13 soil types.  And the hills of the Alsace wine region (75 miles long) are built on a much ampler scale than those of the Côte d’Or (31 miles long). There is much, much more potential difference to explore here, and Riesling is the perfect tool for that work, though you can see clear differences via other varieties, too.

Alsace was hobbled, it’s true, by its late start: a ‘lost century’ between 1860 and 1960, and with serious Grand Cru research only underway from 1983 (24 sites plus Schlossberg, classified in 1975) and 1992 (another 25 sites, joined by Kaefferkopf in 2007). Now, though, terroir research in the region is flying – led by that ‘thoughtful and questioning’ avant-garde among the region’s growers and helped by a newfound enthusiasm for single site wines from those who formerly disdained the system, like Trimbach and Hugel. 

It doesn’t just stop with Grands Crus either, indeed, it shouldn’t. Every Grand Cru will contain differentiated nuggets: we need to see those. And we’re beginning to: Jean Boxler anatomizes his holdings in Sommerberg and Brand via different initial-signified cuvées; Hugel has selected Schoelhammer within Schoenenbourg to crown its range and provide a little competition to Trimbach’s Clos Ste-Hune (itself a tiny 1.67-ha morsel of the 26-ha Rosacker). The identification of lieux-dits is important and well underway. That matters, too, not least because clos (historically established sites) and monopoles (sites in single ownership) were not allowed to apply for separate Grand Cru status, even though their quality often clearly merits this – as with Zind-Humbrecht’s Clos Windsbuhl in Hunawihr or Clos Jebsal in Turckheim.

We have, in sum, an astonishing century of Alsace discoveries ahead … and if you haven’t had the chance to do much homework on Alsace recently, you’ll be amazed by what’s happening there. Join me in the region on a Study Tour if you can – but if not, harry your local wine merchants to take this rapidly evolving region more seriously.

Join Andrew Jefford in Alsace for the WSG Study Abroad Tour, April 6-11, 2025