One of the world's great white wine estates
'The Alsace winegrower is one of the greats, producing wines that are sensual objects of huge personality and impact.' - Andrew Jefford, FT Magazine, 21 August 2021
'2019 is a great vintage!' For a man who usually has so much to say, Olivier Humbrecht's assessment of his 2019s is strikingly pithy. But he is right. His 2019s are bright and refined, intense and pure, and this high-energy vintage has brought individual vineyard character very distinctly into focus. It is a triumph for a domaine that is already widely regarded as one of the world's great white wine estates.
What's Olivier's secret? For one thing, it is a portfolio of some of the best vineyards in Alsace, largely built up by his father Leonard, who had the foresight to buy the great old sites in an era when everyone wanted the flat, easy-to-farm ones. Then there is the fanatical vineyard work; when I visited a few years ago during pruning season, I saw first-hand the levels of consideration demanded of the pruners. (And I wasn't allowed anywhere near the secateurs.) And then there is Olivier's passionate devotion to biodynamic viticulture, which did not come about through ideology, but through watching biodynamics regenerate fading vineyards and dying soils. Nor must you forget his patient, hands-off attitude to winemaking; in his cold, deep cellars, some of Olivier's 2019s took a full year to finish fermentation.
So how to get to grips with this complex, diverse range? Clos Windsbuhl makes a cool, serious Riesling and a racy Chardonnay (the Zind, which is labelled Vin de France since Chardonnay is not permitted for still wines in Alsace). The red limestone soils of the Rotenberg vineyard bring a piquant, concentrated, very Alsatian expression of Pinot Gris. Hengst gives an opulent, spicy Gewurztraminer. But the domaine's greatest site is their Clos St-Urbain monopole in the dauntingly steep Rangen de Thann. Rangen stamps its very mineral, volcanic vineyard character on whatever grape variety is grown there. And, not just an afterthought, there is one red wine. From the limestone and clay soils of Heimbourg comes a bright and delicate Pinot Noir. /NT
Offered subject to remaining unsold; available winter 2021
