Wine regions of the world 1, Alsace France.

The Alsace wine region of France I think is one of the most under appreciated wine regions of the world.  Or is it more to do with the wine being very German in taste and it is a French wine.  The history and surroundings can only be a clue to this as the area has passed from German to french hands a few times.  It is a long and thin region that is squeezed in-between French and the German border is distinct for many reason but for this blog, I want to talk about its wine.

The main grape varieties that you will know are Riesling , Tokay, Muscat, Sylvaner , Pinot Blanc and Gewurztraminer. Now like many people who first come across the wines of the region and the two that I think can give the best idea of the full scope of the region are the Riesling and the Gewurztraminer.

The Riesling are normally dry and very different from the close neighbour  wines in Germany.

Gewurztraminer is my first and perhaps favoured of all of the wines that you can get from the region. And to real wine connoisseur would tell you that this wine is a good introduction but by no means the best.  To this I will say, I like what I like and if that is a sin in the world of wine then I am guilty.  The fruity aromatic spice wine I think is excellent, and I recommend to drink with spicy food such as curry, it goes really well together.

Tokay is said to have been brought back to Alsace from Hungary by mercenary solders, the spoils of war.  This produces a full dry wine.

Muscat as you would expect is so very Grapey and full of flavour and a fantastic bouquet as well, I would call it a old world wine with all the flavour that you get to know from a new world wine.

And the Pinot Blanc normally has a full slightly earthy mineral taste to it and once more is a good dry wine.

Now you also get sparkling wines for the region and a good rose wine as well. So just to mention the white wine with out the other seem very unfair.  However, as far as I know you do not get any reds.  I am sure they are there but I have never had any and do not know of any that are readily for sale.

The wines are all normally  bottled in a tall green tapered bottle the “flute d’ Alsace” so are normally quit distinct when on the shelf in the wine shop.  The wines of course vary for year to year and from winery to winery all creating an individual style.

And some times you get the late picked grapes that produce the excellent and intense wines the “sélećtion du grains nobles” that you normally would think of as desert wines but not all of them are necessarily sweet.

So good wines that are not so well know that come form France and have a lot of German characteristics but are defiantly not German wines. As the a quota from Andre Simon said you would do better to buy good Alsace wine than a mediocre German wine.