Alsace part II – Krug, DRC, Musigny and really rare wine
It was Sunday and we still had a tasting appointment at 10AM — impossible! The tasting was at Domaine Paul Ginglinger in the pretty town of Eguisheim. Sadly, it was gray and overcast on the day we were there but in full bloom it’s so pretty you want to eat it:
For a small town, this place is packed with wine making history: 35 vignerons are located in Eguisheim! Many of them have been making wine for hundreds of years. The Ginglinger family — a mouthful in French: ‘jin-glin-jaer’ — are 13th generation wine makers. The first vintage on family record is 1610! I figured they might know a little about wine. Jean Ginglinger (try saying that name fast with a French accent) showed us around. He headed first for the very cold chai. Jean likes long slow ferments — lots of people do in Alsace — because slow ferments are cool ferments and this preserves aromatics and chews up more sugar, producing drier wine (I’ll go into more detail in a later post). By long ferments, I mean that some of them were still going this long after harvest!
We tasted all the 2007 cuvées suitable for appraisal. Taking over from his father, Jean introduced a regime of battonage. This made the 2007s a little difficult to taste. Aromatically, all the wines were very lifted and lively, as you would expect. They look to be sound wines, but there were no standouts.
The moved back into the office after admiring the hand carved pieces on the front of the 100 year old foudres:
Bacchus
An amorous ‘merman’
What people do when they’re not tasting
The office had an addition that I think all houses should have: a spitton well:
We commenced with the Crémant d’Alsace “Prestige” 2001, 100% Chardonnay and given extended lees maturation. A fabulous Crémant, the best I’ve had from Alsace. Rich, a core of sweet fruit. Very refreshing and fine. Excellent length. A superb alternative to Champagne. The Drei Riesling 2006 was a soft, round, entry level wine. Grapefruit like sourness to the finish. Refreshing but simple. The Riesling Pfersigberg grand cru 2006 was not that step up I was hoping for, again, the vintage coming into play. This was proved when a Riesling Pfersigberg grand cru 2004 was brought forth: this was steely, minerally, a little smokey development. The palate was fine, dry with beautiful acidity. The finish was long. A lovely wine.
We moved on from the Rieslings to the Pinot Gris. The entry level Pinot Gris 2006 was simply too sweet and lacking in acidity for me. Fine as a by the glass wine in Alsace but it wouldn’t travel. The Pinot Gris 2006 grand cru Eichberg had a distinct aroma of spiced, poached peach. It was a bigger, more confident wine, with complexity and refreshing acid. Good.
The entry level Gewurztraminer was typical of the variety, just made for honest, Thai take away. The Gewurztraminer Pfersigberg grand cru 2006 was richer, very spicy and oily, only suitable for dessert or a foie gras like course due to the 50 grams residual sugar. I preferred the Gewurztraminer Eichberg 2006. It had a more delicate minerally feel, more balance and some tannin at the finish that left a dry sensation. Again, quite a bit of residual sugar but it would be excellent after a few years with a spicy fruit salad.
The Gewurztraminer Selection de grains noble 1994 was generously opened, especially when we were told that they expect this to peak after about 40 more years in bottle! It was already smokey, showing development. It was rich, powerful with a core of acidity which will allow it to go the distance. The 80 grams residual sugar was well balanced. I nice way to finish off.
Lunch
We took lunch at Restaurant de la ________. It would be the first of two meals that day which were full of extraordinarily rare wine. The wine list was, simply, staggering. Just about every great French wine you’d want was there. Below retail. It was superb. Ian immediately ordered a Krüg 1988 to recalibrate. This bottle was showing a good level of maturity with that rich crème brûlée and vanilla I see in older wines from the house. The structure of the palate was beautiful, your whole mouth was coated in a rich masala cream which didn’t seem to end. A great way to start.
The prices being what they were, we decided on a brace of 1993 Musignys. The first was a Louis Jadot Musigny 1993. This wine was an utter disappointment. Tasted over 4 hours, it just got worse. Hard. Mean. Even slightly dirty. Avoid.
The next was a wine I never believed I would be lucky enough to taste, the Faiveley Musigny 1993. A mere 150 bottles of this wine was made (we had bottle 35). At first, one could see the tell tale sign of Faiveley at work: a malty, spicy oak. This settled in glass and the wine built over time. Finally, it became a wine which reflected Musigny, with bitter cherry, clay, cassis, chalk, fine soft tannins … but it never had the refinement and sheer sophistication of a Mugnier, Roumier or the better Vogüés. That beautiful, delicious 1993 acidity was there too, and the freshness of 1993 but unfortunately my expectations were just too high.
The previous three wines were utterly blown away by the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti La Tâche 1993, bottle 6616. My glass exploded with that indescribable, confident spiciness and minerality I only see in the wines of this domaine. The bouquet smelt of so many things at once it was confronting: iodine, paprika, milk (!), salt, dried cherries, leather, dried cranberry. The palate was amazingly youthful, very 1993: a powerful vein of acidity and assertive, youthful tannins. Power without weight. A finish which didn’t end. A real challenge to describe it completely. In essence, this is why people pay so much for the wines of this domaine. They are unique.
Our pillaging of the list did not go unnoticed. A group of vignerons at another table came over to introduce themselves and congratulate us on our tastes. The owner even came over and asked if we’d like to visit the cellar.
It turns out, he has three massive cellars. The first is just for wine they sell most often, local plonk essentially. The second, the one he took us too, was better than any dream I’ve had about wine. It was full of Rousseau, DRC, Yquem, Leroy, Le Pin, Petrus, Montrachets, Musignys, Corton Charlemagnes, Clos du Mesnil…
I asked him, what’s in the third cellar. He had the nerve to say ’that’s where I keep the good stuff’! And, he said he has 11,000 bottles of the best wine in the world (well, in France) there. I immediately enquired at unmarried daughters, cellar manager opportunities and the like. The food was okay, well made, but amazingly cheap. I think we paid about $30 each for food. We discussed this with him and his wife. To my relief and great enjoyment, they started on a one hour tirade on the insanity of pricing in French restaurants. They too like to visit the great restaurants of the world and we traded stories about the biggest rip-off. Madame reserved he most venomous criticism for ______ in Paris, at which she paid 400 euros for a six course meal comprising, in her words, a carrot, a little beetroot, three radishes, some potatoes, a few speck of truffle here and there and a roast chicken which, she claims, the waiter simply dropped off in the middle of the table and suggested they admire. Much better value out of Paris and 3 stars are not a guarantee of a good time.
Dinner
I dropped the passenger seat and took a snooze as we sped back to our base at Barr to celebrate Christian Boulard’s birthday, at which he promised to open some interesting wines. We were joined by Christophe, a friend of Christian’s from Champagne. It turns out, being the wine maker for Veuve Cliquot’s Aube based production means he likes the odd glass. He opened a René Secondi Sillery grand cru 1996, made by his uncle. We scoffed it very quickly but the acid was classically 1996. Christian then produced a blind wine. It had an oxidative sherry character and we all declared it a little over the hill. Most people guessed it to be Chardonnay, maybe 15 or 20 years old. It was actually an Aujoux Pouilly Fuissé 1961. Shockingly good condition, considering!
Next, Christian served a superb roast veal dish with two Burgundies. The first was a slightly mean Jean-Louis Trapet Chambertin 1990. This didn’t seem at all like 1990, I decided it was 1993 blind, due to the acidity and the absence of overripe characters. The wine was totally overshadowed by a Bruno Clair Clos de Bèze 1990. This was a much better wine, showing complexity, texture and none of the overripeness that’s really starting to stand out on some 1990s.
Christian asked if we’d like a dessert wine. Being up to my 40th wine of the day, I declined. He said, I have a Massandra, from my birth year. I yelled ‘YES!’
I’ve always wanted to taste the wines of Massandra. It is one of the legends of wine. You go to any major city in the West and you can have what you want: Dom, Krüg, DRC, Leroy, Yquem, first growths, LaLas… but you wont find Massandra. The wines of this domaine are produced from a single, massive vineyard at Yalta, on the Crimean sea. They started producing wine for Eastern and Central European consumers about 150 years ago. They used indigenous and noble varieties to produce wine styles popular in the West. Wines were given names of popular styles in the West, like: Claret, Port, Sherry, et cetera. The wine makers tried — and style continue — to make wines which were not just copies of French and Iberian wine but interesting in their own right.
The winery was taken over by the state when Russian moved to communism. Stalin, apparently, decided to allow the production continue after being impressed with the wine. Massandra continues to produce wine today. Luckily, they had the foresight to keep a large museum of wine and, through Fine and Rare, have been selling older stock. Christian indicated that be bought one of these bottles. When Christian returned from his cellar with a Massandra “Surozh White Port” 1968 I was speechless:
The wine tasted considerable like Tokay, naturally sweet and fortified. It was spicy, almondy, showing development but still fresh and lively. Admittedly, the story is better than this particular wine was… but what a story! I was touched by the generosity of wine lovers, not for the first time (that day!). I had had a day of rare and fine wine experiences that one might be lucky enough to experience once. Unforgettable.
