I just had no idea that the style of the wines was so controversial/divisive. People like what they like (or not), and that is their prerogative. I am curious if Deiss is similarly a lightning rod?
For me, he certainly is. Both for style of wine and for pricing. (And, especially for his field blend of the Altenbourg, for which he has succeeded in upending the Alsace AOC criteria for his own ends: to make a wine that is easiest for him to make: a blend of what is in his holdings there, which he couldn’t qualify as “grand cru” because of some of the varities in his field blend are not allowed in grand cru). Though I’ve liked some ZH wines, mainly those from before they had real problems delivering dryish wines, and before BD guided the winemakers into letting the wines (ie, the yeasts) make themselves and picking by the lunar guidelines, it has been a long time since I’ve liked a Deiss wine. (David S. sold me some of both producers’ when he was still at Pearson’s in the early '90s).
I have visited ZH, and Deiss twice (and not liked the wines either trip; the second was with some former admirers of Deiss who no longer were after the tasting). I find the wines generally too stylized and very very difficult to use at the table, which is my only real goal with wine. It is the rare off-dry or sweet or big alcohol wine that I want to admire on its own…and even rarer when I have someone else to share such a wine with.) For me, Boxler and Barmes-Buecher are wines that I find much more appealing and useful, better values and a range that I can pick and choose from, not all marked by the house style (Boxler’s wines are frequently off-dry, but are still quite useful) and, of course, Trimbach’s…which are very versatile.(Though, in some ways, stylized in their own rigid way.)
I am also on the “other” side of the divide on the Coche wines of Meursault, so I guess, I am not a fan of highly stylized wines from anywhere. I think of them as being the opposite of “pure”…FWIW.
Well thanks for the eloquently stated POV!
I’ve waffled on ZH as there have been some highlights and some disappointments. Overall my experience with the Gewürztraminers have been a little blah - not bad, but In most cases I felt they were never better than when delivered, for example several of the highly touted 89s. My experience with Riesling is mixed: I like Clos Hauserer but I decided I like Trimbach’s style much more. On the other hand I have some 92 Rangen that has recently been fabulous.
I think a lot of the negative reaction is due to a phenomenon that we see all the time: A producer going against tradition, critics rating the wines highly, and a disproportionate amount of press and trade coverage (e.g. PC newsletter). High prices follow scores, and with a lot of people favoring traditional styles, you have a lot of disagreement with press, scores and prices. Pavie, KB, Beaux Freres, modern Rioja, Super Tuscans, luxury CNP, etc.
Excellent point. Add to that, the pendulum swing of public opinion on many of these and it is very hard to get consensus on a lot of wines. I have seen very few wines that are universally loved by wine enthusiasts.
On the other hand, I don’t sense a lot of outright hatred for ZH wine in this thread. The feeling I have and that I am getting from the other ZH “naysayers” is that having tried these wines, they just didn’t quite work for some palates, weren’t useful for food pairing, etc.
I bought a bunch back in the mid 90’s, tried them over the years in different situations, with different meals, different guests, tried them both young and with some age and finally decided to sell them so someone else can enjoy them and I moved on.
Informative discussion, folks. Love the range of views.
I’ve visited ZH and quite enjoy the wines, but can totally appreciate the comments on their “stylized nature”. I supposed a little “stylized” wine every now and again is 100% okay by me.
Obviously, it is all a matter of preference, but I discovered Weinbach about 6 months ago, and I have had several of their wines so far. For my tastes, they blow Zh out of the water. When I want Alsace wines, I now forgo ZH and buy Weinbach.
I do find it odd that some seem to almost feel there is only wine style for an Alsace wine. Seems like there is room to produce and enjoy many different styles. I like ZH and Trimabch. Love the Deiss wines I have had, and if I saw them on close out pricing I would buy more. I also find it interesting that WA scores have come from both David Schildknecht and Pierre Rovanni, two reviewers who don’t have exactly the same tastes in wine, yet the scores are very good from both of them. Certainly David gets more “leniency” from this BB, but apparently that doesn’t extend quite as much to ZH.
As for pricing, I’d hesitate to conclude that US pricing is to be pinned on Oliver. This overlooks the crappy exchange rate (which has had a real effect since at least the 03s IIRC without looking it up) and the preogative of the importer. I can tell you that when I have shopped them in Europe, they are a fraction of what we pay here.
On Weinbach, yes, the Fallers make lovely, stunning wines. They occupy an equal place in my cellar. But they are stylistically different from ZH as a group (with different sites) and thus I do not really compare them…just as I don’t compare Deiss(Engelgarten, Grasberg, Bergheim in some vintages) wines or CSH, the only others I buy. These are all very fine wines that I think are distinguished by stylistic differences more than qualitative differences.
I’ll agree with Stuart that Deiss’ maneuvers with the AOC have made it hard for me to be as supportive as I once was. And US pricing on these are even worse unless you catch them on closeout.
Someone mentioned the ZH CLOS HÄUSERER vineyard earlier. I’ve never had anything from this site even though they’ve been bottling from this parcel since at least 1983 per CT. I looked it up & it’s apparently the lowest portion of the Hengst GC. Vines are younger (1973 vs. 1951 on average), soil contains more Marl, grapes ripen later, and yields double Hengst. For Riesling, there are other ZH sites that I tend to buy (Rangen and Brand). Hengst I actually prefer for Gewurz. Your mileage may vary.
Well, that just proves that everyone’s opinions reflect their reactions to the wines and not to the critics, which is exactly the way it should be, isn’t it?
We ordered out Chinese food tonight, and like a bug to a light I went to the cellar for one of the last of my 1996 ZHs, the Herrenweg Gewurztraminer.
This has plenty of stuff going on and it hasn’t suffered badly from age - I just don’t feel it is better than when it was young, and it wasn’t mind-bending then. I believe the problem for me is low acid.
1996 ZH Gewurztraminer Herrenweg: Good but not exciting, and a little hard to match with food as it is slightly sweet but not dessert sweet. Some honey, a little glue, grapefruit on the nose. Very grapefruit in flavor, with a fairly rich mouthfeel. Finishes somewhat bitter. Needs more acid for crispness.
I started drinking Trimbach wines in the late 70s (my friend’s family was the C&E distributor in So Cal), then discovered Weinbach, Deiss et al before drinking and buying ZH. Over the past few years, my heart and cellar acquisitions have swung back to Trimbach in a big way. I like Olivier and have visited with him at the Domaine (he is a rather famous whisky aficionado and we drank Islay whisky while my wife tasted through the ZH open bottle fridge), but, like many others, have fallen out of love with his wines. For my taste, they are too big, too ripe, too alcoholic, and lacking vibrant acidity and minerality, while masking the places from which they came (notice no use of the dreaded T-word, which is as important to my Alsace love as iT is to a Burgundy lover). I am no terroirist, but… The dry white wines of Alsace, especially Riesling, should be transparent, mineral, and crisp. And capable of aging. Not merely hanging on, but improving. Unfortunately, to my taste, ZH doesn’t. I bought a bunch of '94s that are not a patch on the '89/'90 Trimbach wines, which have continued to improve. I drink wine almost exclusively at meals. The food range for ZH wines is pretty narrow. Give my a racy Alsatian Riesling or one from further up the Rhine any time that I can and do drink with pretty much anything. And at usually a fraction of the cost.
Loren, I wonder if one of the problems for Z-H is that there isn’t even one style within this producer’s range. I can find his wines variously thrilling, exasperating and occasionally frankly bad. I’ve listened to Olivier talk and present his wines a couple of times and become convinced that this variation is a feature of his dogged single-minded pursuit of phenolic ripeness in his grapes and then maybe also of his non-interventionist approach in the winery. So, a couple of examples. First Olivier’s notes (my highlighting):
Gewurztraminer Hengst 2004
Bottling date : 9/2005; > Alcohol: 16.2° alc> ; Residual sweetness: 3.9 g/l; Yields: 33 hl/ha; Optimum drinking period : 2009-2025+; Average age of the vines : 53 years; Surface : 1.42 ha; Terroir : Marl-oligocen calcareous. South-south-east facing, medium to strong slope. Indice 1
The Hengst Grand Cru is located on the middle South South-East facing of the Rotenberg hill in the village of Wintzenheim. Only the two oldest vineyards (one planted < 1940 and the other one in 1957) are used in our Hengst bottling. The soil is made of very young calcareous limestone (Oligocen), with high pH and rich marl topsoil (about 30cm). This soil type is rich in minerals and stays actually quite cool, allowing the Gewurztraminer grapes to ripe to high levels, but quite slowly, and therefore helps to build a fabulous complex aromatic profile where spicy flavours dominate. The Hengst 2004 was harvested very healthy (Hengst rarely has high noble rot influence) and ripe. Fermented dry quite quickly, also a characteristic of this vineyard in some vintages.
The alcohol on the nose on this wine nearly knocked me over! It’s frankly spiritous and it devastates the other qualities of the wine. For me, a car-crash wine. I cannot see this ever becoming balanced or enjoyable. Questioned at the tasting about the high alcohol, Olivier’s response was to the effect that we should simply drink less of this wine than others!
At the same tasting was this:
Riesling Clos Häuserer 2004
Bottling : Feb 2006; Alcohol:13.9 ° alc; Residual sweetness: 6 g/l; Yields: 49 hl/ha; Optimum drinking period : 2008-2020+; Average age of vines : 31 years; Surface : 1.2 ha; Terroir : Calcareous Marl from the Oligocen period. Very gentle slope.; Indice 1
The Clos Häuserer is located right at the bottom of the Hengst vineyard. Naturally its soil is made of lots of different sediments, resulting from erosion of the hill right above it. This explains why the soil is so deep and rich in this vineyard. With age and proper cultivation, the roots have reached deeper levels, less fertile, and more calcareous. The mother rock is between 1 to 1.5m deep in this vineyard. Thiw vineyard enjoys a dry and warm climate, enhanced by the fact that it is well protected from winds. It is traditionally harvested early, but fully ripe, as e try to avoid botrytis in most vintages. Like most Rieslings 2004, the fermentation lasted 12 months.
This seemed to me to be classic Alsace Riesling - it had everything I expected in such a wine on release - very very mineral, just a touch of richness, loads of citrus acidity, dry as a bone, very long, quite delicious and will keep.
For my taste, when he gets it right both the RS and the alcohol are under control, as in the Hauserer. Wrong is when the grapes get super-ripe and he’s left to either deliver a dry-but-alcoholic wine or else a wine with modest alcohol that’s got lots of RS. So the problem for us poor punters it’s not straightforward to know what you’re going to get.
His 1990 Gewürztraminer Goldert VT was an out and out great wine, and some of the '94 VTs were also quite good, but in general I’m not a fan of Zind-Humbrecht Gewürztraminers, and don’t use them to judge the portfolio overall.
I would probably agree with even the first part of your statement…I like some of the Gewurz bottlings in some vintages, but overall this is not what I think he does best. Is it the grape? It would be like judging any of these portfolios on their Sylvaner, a grape I just don’t like that much FWIW. For that matter I like his Goldert Muscats more than most of the Gewurzs, but that again reflects my tempered affection for Gewurz. outside of really perfect growing conditions.
Laura,
His Muscat Goldert can be a brilliant wine, really brilliant, and ages beautifully, at least out to 10 years from a good vintage. Maybe more, but I’ve never had one older than that.
I don’t dislike Gewürztraminer although I don’t drink it very often, but for me, Weinbach is the top producer of this grape (of those that I’ve tried) – very pretty and perfumed wines, never at all heavy or “corrupt”, as some other versions can be.
I certainly don’t think “there is only [one?] wine style for an Alsace wine”. Trimbach, Barmes-Buecher and Boxler (my favorites) are all very different from each other. But, my no. 1 criterion is use at the table, which is why I buy almost all the wines I’ve ever bought. And, those on the extremes of personality, like ZH and Deiss, don’t fit too well at a meal, so…I don’t want to buy them , and don’t really like them. As it seems like I’m not alone, your musing about why ZH gets discounted seemed response worthy, and sparked an informative, and somewhat surprising, thread of responsive postings-- if inadvertent on your part.
Bottom line, though, no one apparently can regulalry sell Alsace wines. Parker has been touting them as undiscovered gems since the early '80s, and they still remain essentially a cult category.
There is certainly plenty "or room …[for] many different styles, and none is “righter”, though some styles might be more versatile/useful for certain purposes, especially to create a harmonious meal.
Thanks for sparking this interesting Alsace thread, as they are few and far between, for sure-- and after Burgundy-- my favorite wine region.
I don’t think Z-H is really a tough sell at all, or at least anymore than most non-moderately priced wines these days. I guess one does see it discounted at times, but it is obviously selling. Selling any white wine that isn’t burg or bubbly for over $50 is not an easy proposition these days. It seems like they, like some of the other Alsatian houses have actually expanded the number of wines they offer.
I will also say, without any criticism of individual palates or reasonings yet learning of them in posts, that it’s no surprise that aficianados like Keith, Nathan, maybe Lew etc, aren’t fans of these wines. Similarly, I wouldn’t expect them to be fans of Alban or Beaux Freres. These wines clearly would do better with folks who tolerate riper wines. I also would guess that I, as an example, drink more wine either not definitively paired with a meal, or with more meals of Asian (or even mexican) food. Again, no slight to anyone else’s preferences, but plenty of people find niches for these wines. In fact I think part of my enjoyment of them is that they are stylistically different from say German or even Trimbach-styled Alsatians.
I do agree that some of the (late 90s?) Advocate scores were inflated, and can see how that combined with pricing could have led to a number of people being disappointed. I think most of those were Rovani, no? I do think that Schidknecht and Tanzer are doing more even-keeled reviews on recent vintages. Fwiw, they often rate them favorably.
The whole portfolio has kind of been lumped into one discussion. First off, I don’t think there are a lot of people that really love gewurz as one of their top varieties. Even Denis Von Banck, who is Alsation and I drink with a lot, doesn’t like it much. I know junkies might disagree but it is hard to get right on a ripeness window, is definitley low acid, and just isn’t built to age. Personally, I don’t see that Trimbach does any better with theirs than Z-H, and in general think Gewurz does its best with VT or SGN. Btw, Z-H’s SGNs are off the charts good.
I also think that Andy made a very good comment about Z-H’s wines being really variable across varietal, vineyard, and especially vintage. I’m curious about people’s comment about “stylized”. I think Olivier’s style can become a fault, in that he really feels that conditions lend themselves to making the best wine at alcohol and sugar levels that can really very wine-to-wine, and year-to-year. In reality if one were looking for lower alc, lower sugar/dry wines; one would do dramatically better with certain vintages. I think the 07 rieslings are in that vein. My favorite is Clos St. Urbain, and IIRC it, Brand, and the Windsbuhl are under 2g/L r.s., around 13.2-13.3%, and have good acid levels. They definitely have a richer mouthfeel and less minerality than say CFE, but the numbers are pretty in line. I remember the 96s as being in that camp as well. On the flipside, Olivier clearly is not averse to letting things hit 15.5% alcohol. He loves to pick late and definitely chases the aromatics. At times he keeps the alcohol and sweetness down, and at times he doesn’t.
I remember comments he made when I tasted the hot vintage 03s. I was a bit surprised that the sugar and alcohol levels on the Rieslings were relatively low, while the Gewurz Windsbuhl (my fave of that vintage) really raced up. I made some sort of comment about the differences and he made a comment that he just made each wine he thought best for the seasons conditions, knowing they might be very different wines. That they would just be best consumed under differing circumstances. I think that’s what I do with them, just as I do with wines like Alban or Aubert.
John, that is a great post summarizing the thread. (You are right that I’m not a Alban or Beaux Freres fan, BTW.)
Yes, Lew, John makes some good points…but then there are those like me…card-carrying A-FE (I detest Alban, SQN, Rolland-esque wines) and very traditional palate. As you know, our tastes converge on a lot of wines. I may even be more narrow on some of this…I am shopping 09 Burgs very very carefully because I am concerned about ripeness for me. 08s probably more my style. I like John Gilman. 
And then there’s this thing with Alsace. And to boot, I love CSH and Oliver’s Rangen bottlings in equal, though separate, measure. Sorry I just don’t fit in that box.