Domaine Trimbach: Some Wines

To the capital city and to Good Brothers for a tasting with Julien Trimbach, the young man who will one day be the 13th generation winemaker at Domaine Trimbach, one of the best Alsace producers (top three, I'd say). He's a remarkably accomplished speaker, and had some very interesting things to say.

I've never heard another winemaker (or perhaps I should say apprentice winemaker) talk so much about the taste of soil. Perhaps that reflects the diversity of soil types in Alsace, which range from granite, to limestone, to iron-rich soils, and even volcanic to a kind of crumbled granite called grés de Vosges.

We tasted through eleven wines taken from the currently available range, plus a beautiful Pinot Gris from 1990. The house style is decidedly dry, which suits my palate very well.

Riesling Réserve 2014
The grapes for this cuvee are harvested from several different soil types and vineyards, but M Trimbach described it as having a "limestone nose". It's a zingy, fresh wine, with intense lime and grapefruit aromas and a long lasting citric acidity. Delicious.

Riesling Sélection de Vielles Vignes 2012
Described by M. Trimbach as "a classic vintage", he also told us that for this vintage 80% of the fruit is from the Vorderer-Haguenau vineyard, from vines over 80yo. At 4.5 grams per litre of residual sugar it's still a dry wine, but definitely softer than the Reserve. I found a beautiful waxy note on both the nose and palate, and the citrus fruit elements were so ripe they seemed almost tropical.

Cuvée Frédéric Emile 2008
Trimbach are famous for their refusal to use the Alsatian Grand Cru designations on their labels (although that is changing now), and Freddy Emile is in fact a blend of Riesling from two different Grand Cru vineyards, so they wouldn't be allowed to label it as such. That doesn't stop it being a fabulous drop. Where the Vielles Vignes was showing spicy notes, this has evolved into savouriness, while still showing the intense citrus fruit of the younger wines. The texture was wonderfully buttery too.

Clos Sainte Hune 2008
M. Trimbach had stressed that the company likes to hold back wines until they are ready for release, but I guess that's not feasible in this case. Even López de Heredia in Rioja don't wait a quarter century to release Vina Tondonia. And that's the sort of time to mature that I think this wine probably needs.

The Clos Ste Hune is a lieu dit within the Rosacker Grand Cru in Hunawihr. There are just 1.67 hectares of sixty year old Riesling vines, yielding a mere 10,000 bottles annually, on average. Clos Ste Hune's soil is a kind of shell filled limestone called muschelkalk, which is the kind of uniquely Alsatian word which illustrates the mixed Franco-German heritage of the region nicely.

The nose showed petrol and a leafiness - not quite leaf mold, but old leaves. There was also a silky, creamy, mineralic whiteness, as if I were smelling white chocolate, but sans vanilla, or some sort of very rich white flowery perfume.

The palate was soft, rounded, and intense, but very, very tight. It was very well balanced, with a dominant flavour of lime. Of all the wines, this was the only one which seemed warm in the finish. To me, it was on the same level of quality as the other wines I tasted, which I'm inclined to attribute to its relative youth.

Pinot Gris Réserve 2014
Described as "Pinot d'expression", I found this to be very savoury and spicy, indeed almost meaty. I found chestnuts on the nose, which I've never seen in a wine before. The palate was much more about fruit, with green apples and grapefruit, plus a leafier version of the spices from the nose.

Pinot Gris Réserve Personelle 2013
Made with grapes from the Grand Cru of Osterberg, this wine was rather gentler than the 2014, and there was more fruit on the nose; ripe, honeyed yellow apples, even a touch of banana. The palate was sweet and rich, with a lovely soft lemon sherbet finish.

Gewurztraminer Réserve 2011
Less intense than the previous wines, this showed classic Gewurz notes of rose, lychee, and/or turkish delight (take your pick. Or we could just agree to use Gewurztraminer as a descriptor). The palate was very easy going, with a tasty background note of dry savoury spice which somehow made me think of suede.

Gewurztraminer Cuvée des Seigneurs de Ribeaupierre 2011
Drawn from two Grand Cru vineyards, Altenberg Mandelberg, this wine smelt more spicy than the Reserve, but had less of the floral elements. The palate was riper, too, with the fruit veering into mango territory and a lovely broad mid-toned spiciness.

Pinot Noir Réserve 2015
This was a surprise - a tasty surprise. From a dry vintage, and made "without oak" (actually 80 hectolitre very old oak tanks), it was juicy, fruity, clean, and utterly gluggable. Or, as M. Trimbach more elegantly put it, "not an intellectual wine". The nose was cherry syrup, the palate was redcurrants. Lightly chilled on a warm day, this would be gone in twenty minutes.

Pinot Gris Vendanges Tardives 2008
This wine perhaps whould have been aired for a little longer, as it initially showed that hint of cabbage which occasionally appears in old whites. With time it developed concentrated buttery and mossy notes. The palate was sweet, with butter orange peel, some green lime notes, and a surprisingly light body for a VT.

Gewurztraminer Vendages Tardives 2014
This was described as being a "difficult vintage".

A nose of ripe roses and powdered ginger, which evolved over time to show some leafiness and a slight mushroom character. The palate was very fresh, light, and completely unsticky - brilliant acidity. I found flavours of ripe yellow apples and honey.

Pinot Gris Vendanges Tardives 1990
A wee treat from the cellar to finish off. If you made a plate of wholemeal toast with lashings of butter and runny honey, and then took away the toast, then you'd have the nose of this wine – except of course that buttered toast is never really elegant, and the wine was so very elegant.

The palate was soft and elegantly glamorous, with plenty of acidity to suggest that the vintage will evolve for many years to come. It was much, much sweeter than the other VTs, and had a glorious complex spiciness which might have been cedar wood.

Ridgeview Pimlico

English sparkling wine is a very fine thing indeed, if not yet the equal of champagne, but I wouldn't say the same of such English still red wines as I've tasted (although that's no great sample size - not even a handful).

Hence, via some unconscious calculus of likely quality, I had no great expectations of a bottle of Ridgeview Pimlico. And so I was very pleasantly surprised - it's delicious.

It pours a dark, dark red, with properly pink froth, sending my mind on Austral paths, but of course the cepage is the Pinots Noir & Meunier, so it is light in body, despite the dark colour.

The nose is a very attractive mix of bitter cherry and dark chocolate. The palate matches the nose precisely, and adds a mature, gamey note - although I was reminded more of Chianti and Sangiovese than Burgundy and Pinot Noir.

The finish, alas, is short and abrupt, but nevertheless, for the colours and flavours, I would rate it as mostly excellent.

There didn't appear to be a vintage marked on the bottle, but it seems that this was made in 2003  because it was such a hot year that the grapes were supremely ripe. So don't be looking for this in your local wine merchant any time soon.

Wild Roses

Goodness, I've never seen such a dark champagne before. If I didn't know what it was, I'd be guessing Shiraz for the grape, or perhaps a Cabernet - Merlot blend.

The Piper-Heidsieck Brut Rosé Sauvage NV is really dark, but when you hold it up to the light you see more of onion-skin than raspberry. And it smells pretty fantastic.

It smells, in fact, properly Champagne-like, but with a big blast of red fruit flavours and a strong mineral - specifically metallic, most specifically copper - element. The coppery tang almost makes me think of a well-hopped amber ale.

The palate is complex, offering a dry attack, a sweet mid-palate, a drying finish, and lovely red-fruit aftertaste. There's more of the coppery flavour in there; coming from, I think, Pinot Noir.

It looks really beautiful too. The dark colour is complemented by a very lively stream of fine bubbles. An excellent and unusual champagne, 3-4.

Ridgeview Merret Fitzrovia 2007

All the best bits of Cremola Foam.

I'm now going to use another 150 words to justify those seven, but really,I ought to just write them out another 21 times.

To start with, I have to deal with the age thing. If you aren't old or Scottish enough to have enjoyed the sharp, pungent fizz and sweet squishy raspberry (ersatz raspberry, I know, but still delicious) of a freshly stirred glass of Cremola on a hot summer's day, well - that doesn't matter, because you can have this.

And then, I wouldn't want Ridgeview to think I was suggesting there was anything artificial or saccharine about this lovely wine. That's why I say, "All the best bits".

And there's more. I found a definite spicy edge to it, which I suppose comes from the one third Pinot Noir. This particular bottle seemed slightly reductive, but that actually added to the impression that I was drinking Cremola, so it's hardly a criticism.

So, 155 words later, let me recommend the Ridgeview Merret Fitvrovia 2007, because it offers all the best bits of Cremola Foam. (All the best bits = -4)

The Fox has changed his spots

There really is quite a lot of wine out there. You can't track every wine through every vintage. Sometimes this throws up surprises.

It's two years, and two vintages, since I have tasted d'Arenberg's Feral Fox Pinot Noir, and I was really rather surprised by the way it has changed. It is much, much lighter than in the past. I followed this wine from the 2002 to 2006 vintage without seeing any change from the rich, concentrated, McLaren Vale style - the anti-Burgundy, as it were.

Savoury - soy, minerals, stones - and also juicy like cherries, the 2008 vintage is still a straightforward sort of a Pinot, but much less concentrated than the 2006 was. I wasn't alone in this judgement, B said so too.

I don't think the wine is worse, or better, for the change (it's a relaxed juicy, 3+), but it is surprising, and I can imagine that people who liked it in the past might be disappointed by this year's version.

Sweet Wine Wednesday # 11

Winemakers do some odd things, but occasionally you taste the result and wonder why everyone isn't doing likewise.

Larry Brooks at Marmesa Vineyards in the Central Coast region of California decided that, ahead of the main harvest, he would go through the Pinot Noir picking the botrytised grapes and then make them into a sweet wine.

Marmesa Red Harvest Dessert Pinot Noir 2006 is a beautiful dusky rose-pink colour. It smells fantastic - tea and roses and freshness, and tastes just as good. There's a buttery texture to it, and tangy oranges into orange/lime marmalade. The 18% residual sugar - that's more than many Tokays - is well balanced with acidity. Altogether a fantastic wine. (fantastic = 4++(-5?), by the by)

We also tasted a Spanish oddity. Tasted blind I took it for some sort of sherry but in fact the Reserva Especial de Rotllan Torra 12anys comes from the north-east of the country, from Priorat. It's made from Garnacha and Carignan, aged in ancient barrels for four years and then in glass bonbons for another eight, estufagem style ("changes in temerature rust and produce the mature wine"). Yes, it does say 'rust'.

It has a complex nose, strongly sherried or rancio, with elements of cardamom spice alongside lanolin or Nivea. The palate is bone dry and sour green citrus, almost tamarind-sour. You might distinguish it from sherry by noting that it isn't quite as bracing. Not bracing, but still an excellent 4+.

What will they think of next?

I mean really, Pinot Noir in Sicily? Yes I know they have mountains and all, but still, think of the sunshine.

But then, looking at their web page, they really are very high up, and it says it's a Vineyard of Cold Terrain, so that's all right then.

And the wine, Maurigi Terre di Ottavia Pinot Noir 02, is indeed excellent. Clean fresh raspberry juice, which still smells faintly of the flinty earth it comes from, and laced with aromas of the sweet oak which has held it for two years. At five years old it remains rather sharp, but in a way which nicely complements a dish of garlicky beans in olive oil. Excellent, 4+.

Shurely Shome Mishtake, Vicar

I was preparing to present some Pinot Noirs at a tasting last week, and also thinking about how we describe wine. I found a very long list of scents and flavours which were said to have been noted in Pinot. I wrote some of them out, but dismissed a fair number as implausible, and then read out the list at the start of the tasting just to get people in the mood.

Imagine my surprise when three people - at two different tables - said that one wine smelt like Sauvignon Blanc (this flavour/scent was not on the list).

I don't really have anything to say about this, I just want to share my bamboozlement with you.

Plum jam and old iron

I'm drinking de Bortoli Yarra Valley Gulf Station Pinot Noir (2004, stelvin) and wondering how to describe it. I don't really hold with the fruit-salad-throw-lots-of-adjectives-and-something'll-stick approach, but I can't just leave it at 'plum jam and old iron'. Then again, if I say that I mean the sort of cheap Polish plum jam Safeway used to sell long ago, before Solidarity got started on doing away with the Communists, rather than the rich, fresh - FRESH! - confection that Bob whizzed up from Mrs O's glut last autumn I'm inviting a nomination to Pseud's Corner.


It's interesting, this challenge we face of trying to translate our impressions of a wine from the personal to the universal. For me, it's a fair proportion of the pleasure I find in wine.

"This is all very well", I hear you say, "but should I shell out £9 for a bottle?". Hmmn. Probably not. It's a decent wine, interesting, does show varietal character a little, but it's not all that satisfying to drink. In truth, I think it's too young. So, buy it and keep for a year or two, or nod wisely and move on. Despite which, I do think it rates 14/20. Interesting but not satisfying.

Swiss wine, by golly!

Yup, courtesy of the Big Egg, a bottle of Jean-René Germanier Dôle Balavaud Grand Cru '03, under cork. Never tasted Swiss wine before, hey-hey. Apparently they keep it all for themselves. This stuff is good. It puts me in mind of bojo, or passetoutgrains, which isn't a great surprise, since the grape blend is pretty much the same; pinot noir and gamay.

Dark red, the nose is still developing - it's a good balance of bright fruitiness and a more mature savoury (maybe potato?) character. On the palate the wine is dry, light-bodied, and markedly spicy, with perhaps a hint of licorice. It's distinctly warming.

I want to be drinking this wine somewhere in France, with a chunk of Tomme des Pyrénées, one of those skinny baguettes they call a flute, and the sun on my back. Thank you, your Eggness.

Whoops, the score... (14)-15/20.

The Feast of Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker

should always be marked by the drinking of prosecco and South African pinot. (in that order, not together... probably).

The non-vintage prosecco in this case being a nicely off-dry frizzante style IGT from Cazzano di Tramigna. A very pleasant 13-14/20 (and 5/5 for value).

Steenberg pinot noir 2000 (which is not listed in Steenberg's wines) was a tasty lightweight wine. Medium red, showing no signs of age, the delicate nose had hints of coffee underlying the dominant smoky strawberries character. On the palate there was the looked-for gamey note, and a long finish which became rather bitter. 14/20