Vintage: 2019
Grapes: Riesling
Style: White Wine
Alcohol Content: 13%
Region: Alsace, France
Sub-Region or Appellation: Dambach-la-Ville
Viticulture: Certified Organic 2009
Age of Vines: 30 years old
Soils: Granite, some mica
Yeasts: Indigenous
Vinification: Direct pressed into white Burgundy barrels
Aging: 20 months in white Burgundy barrels; gentle process of roulage instead of batonnage 3-4 times a year to incorporate lees
Fining or Filtering: none

Notes

This is Pierre's experimental barrel of Riesling sur lie, a wine that spends over a year and a half on the fine lees, but still pierces with linear acidity. The sleek acid is beautifully balanced with a rich texture, clean minerality, and a lemon oil finish. Notes of white peach, white flowers and preserved lemon shine through.

About the producer:

The family's eight hectares of vines sit on a mixture of granite and various types of mica that retain heat and let water filter through. Tasting their wine, you have the impression it was squeezed from these stones — after all, Pierre insists "c'est pas la cave qui fait du vin. C'est la vigne" (wine is not made in the cellar; it’s made in the vineyard). In his eyes, it is a conduit to the past, a liquid imprint: from their stately, grandma-chic Tricentenaire (a cuvée of Pinot Gris they dreamed up to commemorate their 300 year anniversary) to their salt of the earth Pinot Noir élevé en pièces (which we nicknamed 'Droit Comme un I' — straight as an arrow) to their Diamant Liquide - Riesling en Barrique (Pierre's experimental barrel of Riesling sur lie which tastes, in our mind's eye, of liquid diamonds). Perhaps most emblematic is their Vin Nature—all jasmine and lavender on the palate—so named when they realized there was a word for what they'd been making for centuries.