A Place Called Alsace

I am not going to lie; I have been a very naughty Guiggie. There have been a few little hiccups along the road in the last 6 weeks that have wreaked havoc on my ability to record my wine adventures. Mostly I have just been enjoying the silly season frivolity with gusto and putting in a stellar effort in researching the topic of wine to bring you some fascinating pearls of wisdom, which I believe I have. 

Just like ‘the rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain’ my ‘choice of wine this time comes from a place called Alsace’. Somewhere along the line I have learnt that it is much easier to learn things by association or rhyme which has helped me hone my growing wine acumen in the last few weeks. Before one can become an expert in anything it needs to be broken down and then rebuilt to understand how it all works.

The wine from Alsace came onto my radar in a little bar called Bar H in Surry Hills. I asked the sommelier to give me a wine that was similar to a Pinot Gris or a Pinot Grigio. The wine that she gave me was a Pinot Blanc from Alsace and was like a ray of sunshine streaming down my oesophagus. It had a perfumed bouquet nose (as per the description), which meant that it smelled like flowers, and it most certainly did. The floral scent is something that I remembered from that wine and took on board.

Throughout a series of dinners and trips to wine bars around town I continued an exploration of the region. As I have learnt, the climate and conditions for growth of a particular grape determine their character. When I looked into Alsace I realised that there are a number of different varieties that grow well there. I like to think of them as cousins, all from the same background and upbringing but have their own unique personality.

Riesling is the oldest one with the dry sense of humour; Gewürztraminer is the German cousin from across the border who is a little feisty and known for being drunk at a young age; Pinot Blanc is the shyer of the bunch preferring to not over power the others; Pinot Gris is a little bit fatter than the others and Sylvaner is the baby with the fresh face who is always pleasant to have around.

Wines from Alsace often have this shape bottle

On a catch up with my old wine buddy Sarah Nally and new recruit Nicola Dow-Smith we met at the lovely little city based wine bar De-Vine on the corner of Market and York and polished off a bottle of Paul Kubler 2007 Sylvaner ‘K’ from Alsace France. We discovered that it is not only always the grape variety that you like, but also the qualities produced from the region that the wine is from.

Since then rather than search for a particular type of wine, I have been searching for wines from Alsace France. You may think that imported wine would be expensive but this is not necessarily the case. The wine that we were drinking at DeVine was $13 by the glass, and the bottles that I have been buying in my local bottle shop range from $22 - $40. The tip to picking one of these types of wines is the distinctive long thin bottle shape.

In essence the lesson learnt for my most recent research has been that by looking at the regions from the old world wine producers one can get a better understanding of how that variety in its original environment. This is the basic building block. The next challenge will be to understand how the grape variety has taken on new characteristics when grown in the new world environment.