Pinot Gris in Alsace is not like the average Pinot Grigio from Italy. Pinot Gris doesn't lend itself to mass production, but that doesn't stop many Italian producers from making an ocean of Pinot Grigio, which is often tasty, but ultimately simple wine. Certainly you can find high-minded producers in Italy making Pinot Grigio that has great majesty, and this is more akin to the grand, sweeping, resplendent Pinot Gris found at good estates in Alsace.

What's in a Name?
Once known locally as Tokay or Tokay d'Alsace, EC considerations forced the combo-moniker of Tokay-Pinot Gris. Subsequent EU law forced Alsatians to drop their regionalism altogether so that no one would confuse it with Hungarian Tokaji. Not that anyone would, but this is what happens when you bring European countries together politically. So now it is known, on bottles at least, simply as Pinot Gris.

However it is known, this pink-berried mutation of Pinot Noir is responsible for some richly textured and aromatic (though not aromatic, as you'd find with Muscat or Gewürztraminer) wines when vine yields are limited. It excels, in a different way than does Riesling, across the sweetness spectrum, but it is most often found as a dry, deeply colored wine with significant corpulence. Pinot Gris runs far behind Riesling and Gewürztraminer in vine population, but many of the new generation of producers believe that it is the way of the future, and plantings of it continue to increase. If its success in Oregon and New Zealand is any indication, then these producers are right.

Pinot Gris in Late Harvest Form
Of the varieties in Alsace that excel as late-harvest wines (i.e., Riesling, Gewürztraminer, and Pinot Gris), Pinot Gris is perhaps the most consistent. This is curious, considering that it is just as mercurial as Pinot Noir in the vineyard. The number of vineyards dedicated solely to Pinot Gris, and expressly late harvest, continues to grow. Pinot Gris is possessed of a naturally strong acidity, which makes it a regular candidate for late harvest wines in both Vendange Tardive and Sélection de Grains Nobles. Vendanges Tardives of Pinot Gris are found in both dry and sweet styles (though sweeter wines are certainly more common), and they are incredibly rich and velvety, more tropical and exotic than regularly classified forms, and with some maturity they take on a buttered mirabelle quality. The levels of grandness increase exponentially with the Sélection de Grains Nobles, as the thin-skinned Pinot Gris is the "noble" variety most susceptible to botrytis. Pinot Gris usually retains excellent acid levels in this form, and this combined with the sugar and the noble rot leads to a dazzling wine that is very commonly full of peach, butter toffee, cream, and spice flavors.

Pinot Gris with Food
Pinot Gris has two great qualities that make it such a successful food wine: attractive perfume that isn't overpowering and excellent body and acidity. It is with rich, savory foods that it shines most brightly, and is a worthy replacement for many hearty red wines, should you seek to have a white alternative. It works so well in this regard that you could serve it with Pot Roast (or as the Alsatians do, with Baeckeoffe) and it would go perfectly well.

Popularity: 22% [?]

Chasselas is not a principle feature of the Alsatian winescape. In fact, it is hardly available in Alsace, and its population there is decreasing. Chasselas gets the most attention in France as table grapes, but in Switzerland and in the Crépy region of the Savoie in the French Alps it is grown with care for vinous purposes. In Alsace it is generally destined for blending into Edelzwicker, which is as close to 'tap wine' from Alsace as you can get.

Common Characteristics of Chasselas
Chasselas, when well-made, is a delightful, fresh, and vividly zippy wine that often has a lemon and lemon blossom fragrance, and is usually fairly delicate. These are wines intended to be happy and carefree, which is in part the reason they are included in Edelzwicker. Those who choose to make a varietally labeled Chasselas tend to be committed to the variety itself, despite its stagnance in the marketplace. Wine made from old vine Chasselas usually has a distinctly richer character than is typical, with a denser texture and creamy sense of fruit concentration. It is from old vines that Domaine Schoffit, without question, makes the most consistent Chasselas available in the United States. Pierre Sparr also makes a tasty Chasselas, and I had a very good one from Paul Blanck a few years ago, but I do not know if they still make one.

Late Harvest and Dessert Chasselas
The only way I have ever heard of Chasselas used in this sort of specialized form is when it is a component of Vin de Paille, which is a densely sweet wine made from grapes that have been dried on straw mats (paille=straw), or more commonly hung from the rafters to dry, and vinified. I suspect that Chasselas is used in this role because it doesn't cost much. Vin de Paille is horrendously expensive to make, considering if you started with two tons of fruit, you could end up with only ten gallons of liquid, and where's the economy in that? Blending Chasselas and Sylvaner in with the Gewurztraminer, Riesling, and Pinot Gris would certainly make the cost easier to stomach, but that still does little to ensure that you'll ever see one on your wine store's shelves.

Chasselas and Food
Oysters are a great combination with Chasselas, and I find herring to be a good companion as well. Old vine Chasselas can have enough richness to be a good wine with scallops, but the preparation shouldn't be overly flavored--add something grander than a white wine sauce and you should search for something else. Other good pairings would be chicken (especially Chicken Salad), clams, crab, skate, and Port Salut cheese.

Popularity: 8% [?]

If you don’t know Muscat d’Alsace, this dry, abundantly aromatic wine is outrageously appointed with delicious flavors, and yet can be so hauntingly subtle from some of the Grands Crus that one could be forgiven for thinking it a different grape.

Grapes Behind Muscat in Alsace
Muscat in Alsace comes from two (three if you want to be technical) varieties: Muscat d'Alsace and Muscat Ottonel. Muscat d'Alsace is a local moniker for the ancient mutant cousins Muscat Blanc à Petit Grains and Muscat Rosé à Petit Grains, both of which are found in large quantities along the Mediterranean coast. Muscat Ottonel's origins are much more recent, was it was created for use in the cooler climates of Hungary, Austria, and Romania in the 19th Century. A well-crafted Muscat made of only Petit Grains is an excellent wine, while a Muscat made only of Muscat Ottonel is good. The best are, perhaps not surprisingly, made of a blend of the two. Most producers share this last opinion--indeed, it is the fruits of their labor that have shaped my opinion--though there is considerable dissent regarding the nobility of the two strains on their own.

Muscat à Petit Grains is a low-yielding variety, while Muscat Ottonel bears much more copiously. Ottonel improves if its yield is limited, but the quality ascends only so far in this regard, so yields need not be held as low as the typical yield of Muscat à Petit Grains to achieve good results. Ottonel's aromatics are much more obvious than those of Petit Grains, but its flavor profile is more one-dimensional. Muscat à Petit Grains makes more long-lived wines, as well, though longevity is not necessarily the idea where Muscat is concerned.

Muscat as it Ages
Muscat is capable of aging quite well, especially if it contains significant amounts of Muscat à Petit Grains. It begins with ethereally exotic features that evolve into terrestrially exotic tones. The first couple of years after a Muscat is released, the wine typically has full-throated aromas and flavors that combine the exotic elements with ones that are decidedly more plain. Elements reminiscent of orange blossom and spices (often not unlike pumpkin pie spices) dovetail with straight grape-y scents, which are unusual in wine. The initial aromatic sensuousness begins to decline steadily after this, and it typically develops a caraway quality that deepens as it continues to mature. I have had 20 year-old Muscat that is as full of caraway as it could be, but it also had acquired notions of cumin and coriander too.

Late Harvest Muscat
Muscat is rarely found in late-harvest form because as a grape with naturally low acidity, it is difficult to maintain a balance of freshness with the over-ripe flavors. When you can find it, Vendange Tardive is most common, but Sélection de Grains Nobles is not out of the question--it's just even rarer. Conventional wisdom is that late harvest Muscat should be drunk young, but I have not experienced this. Domaine Zind-Humbrecht made two benchmark Muscats Vendanges Tardives in 1995 from the Goldert Grand Cru and the Herrenweg de Turckheim that surrounds the estate. I bought a few bottles of each, and through the years, they have developed beautifully. The Herrenweg seemed least likely to mature well, but it was still beautiful--although very different--when I drank my last bottle in 2006. The Goldert has lost its sense of anticipation...a kind of hold-your-breath elusiveness...but it remains as intriguing as ever.

Food with Muscat
Muscat is quite food friendly, as in Alsace it generally develops sufficient acidity to be flexible. One of the most common uses for it is to accompany asparagus, which is at the very heart of Alsatian cuisine. Muscat is also the most reliable accompaniment to Indian and Thai cuisines I’ve had this side of milk or beer. (The guy who popularized the notion that Gewurztraminer is the classic pairing with those foods needs to actually taste them together--while a specific Gewurz might be exquisite with a specific dish, as a class they'll clash as often as not.)

Popularity: 6% [?]

There are a number of "village" wines in Alsace, but they have little impact in export markets. Most of them are red wines made of Pinot Noir with names such as Rouge d'Ottrott or Rouge de St.-Hippolyte. There is another, which is arguably more important to posterity, called Klevener de Heiligenstein. This curiosity is the phantom tenth grape permitted in Alsace under the AOC Vin d'Alsace designation, but only when grown within the bounds of five communes in the Bas-Rhin. Outside of Alsace, the pink-berried Klevener de Heiligenstein is known principally as Traminer.

Characteristics of Klevener de Heiligenstein
A well-made Klevener de Heiligenstein--Traminer--tastes as though someone took the wind out of the sails of a Gewurztraminer. Almost everything about the grape is more modest than Gewurz, which should not be surprising, since Gewurz means 'spiced.' Traminer is similarly, if not quite so brazenly, full-bodied. Its aroma often reminds me of cloves or allspice, but in a much more delicate fashion, and I have occasionally caught a very appealing wiff of isinglass (those zippered windows on a Jeep, not the fish bladder). It's yellow fruit flavors are quite satisfying and even exotic, but the first few times I had a Traminer, I found it lacking, but that is because I know that Gewurztraminer lurks behind it.

On the Trail of the Pink Klevener
Traminer--the Klevener of Heiligenstein--has recently been proven to be indentical to the Savagnin grape. The white-berried Savagnin is best known in the Jura region--which is just south of Alsace--as the grape responsible for the famous, peculiar, and somewhat sherry-like Vin Jaune. French ampelographer (a botanist who is concerned with identifying and classifying grape vines) Pierre Galet maintains that Traminer is a pink-berried mutation of Savagnin that he calls Savagnin Rosé. It is difficult to know when the mutation occurred, and therefore hard to determine where it occurred. Most theories hold that Savagnin Rosé did the travelling, not only to Alsace, but Germany and other points east.

Klevener de Heiligenstein does have a significant role in wine grape history, if not necessarily as "Klevener", but as Traminer. If Savagnin mutated into Savagnin Rosé--Traminer--then it was a secondary mutation that brought us Gewurztraminer, as Gewurz is widely considered to be the musqué, or highly aromatic, version of Traminer.

By Any Other Name
In addition to Savagnin Rosé, Traminer, and Klevener de Heiligenstein, this variety also known as Roter Traminer. Klevener de Heiligenstein is not a village appellation in the strictest sense, as the following five different villages are allowed to bottle wine as "Klevener de Heiligenstein": Barr, Gertwiller, Goxwiller, Heiligenstein, and Obernai. And finally, Klevener de Heiligenstein should not be confused with Klevner (or Clevner), which is a common moniker for Pinot Blanc or a Pinot Blanc-based blend.

Popularity: 5% [?]

This variety is not as well known as it should be in some circles, and much too heavily depended upon in others. It ripens early and bears copiously--so copiously (and therefore diluted) that it can be accused of soiling its own name (at the hands of unscrupulous growers, of course) in the manner of Carignan.

Growers in Germany give this wine more consideration than many Alsace producers, which is a shame, but not entirely surprising, as the Grand Cru system in Alsace favors Riesling, Gewürztraminer, Pinot Gris and Muscat. Sylvaner usually takes the unhallowed role locally of carafe wine, and in that guise it is pleasant enough. In the Rheinland, especially Rheinhessen and the Pfalz, it is something altogether different and more successful, but that seems to be the doing of the vineyard managers and cellar masters to the east of Alsace. There are some estates in Alsace that clearly treat the grape with some reverence, and these are the ones typically available outside of France.

Common Qualities of Sylvaner
Sylvaner has a relatively neutral aroma of lemon and occasionally granite after it has rained. Occasionally the scent reminds me of Muscadet, especially when it has some unabsorbed CO2 (which usually remains if bottled unfiltered). Sylvaner is usually attractively priced, has lots of zing, and is best drunk young, though I have known it age well when made in an austere style. I still have some Albert Boxler Sylvaner from 1998 that is still vibrant and minerally, despite losing its carbonic gas over the past decade. Its flavors are often indistinct but quite refreshing (if made with care), and it is easy to drink. When it is over-cropped, it is diluted and insipid, and some growers try to make up for this by picking before the grapes are ripe so that the acidity takes the place of flavor, but this rather unappealing flavor is not lost on most drinkers.

Grand Cru Sylvaner?
Yes, there is a Grand Cru Sylvaner--found only the the Bas-Rhin vineyard of Zotzenberg. Zotzenberg has historical fame for great Sylvaner, but until 2006, only Gewürztraminer, Muscat, Pinot Gris, and Riesling were entitled to Grand Cru status. Growers continued to grow Sylvaner in Zotzenberg anyway, and eventually wiser thinking prevailed within the bureaucracy and Sylvaner was added for this vineyard alone. I gather this means that we will also see Vendange Tardive and Sélection de Grains Nobles Sylvaner from Zotzenberg, and some may have been made, but I have not yet seen any, and would love to know if and when it happens.

Even before its station improved, Sylvaner grown in Zotzenberg carried a bit of residual sugar, but alcohol levels were also routinely over 10%, so these wines have a history of being power-oriented (for Sylvaner). This is uncharacteristic for Alsatian Sylvaner as a whole, but is a welcome representative of what the grape is capable of producing when grown on a great site.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Once upon a time, Gewürztraminer was the poster child for the wines of Alsace, as it was commonly the first wine people encountered from the region. If this grape's wines are not the most majestic (that would be Riesling) or seductive (which is certainly Muscat), it definitely makes the most individualistic wines. A good Gewürztraminer is voluptuous and sexy, but it generally garners reactions not unlike the town harlot: these wines are often "love it" or "hate it" experiences. Gewürztraminer is often so intense and powerful and...controversial...that Pinot Blanc (well Auxerrois really) is now in the van for representing Alsace wine to the world.

Gewürztraminer ("guh-VURTZ-TRA-mee-ner")is a pink-berried mutation of the Traminer ("TRA-mee-ner") grape variety. It was apparently known at some point as Traminer Musqué, but when the gewürz (which literally means "spiced" in German) was attached, it stuck. The name is the result of its perfume, which is so exuberant that it can be identified in a blind tasting based on that information alone.

This pronounced aroma is generally dominated by scents of litchi nuts and/or rose petals, sometimes grapefruit and honey, and when it is bone-dry: bacon fat. The flavor of a typical Gewürztraminer is often dominated by litchi nuts as well, but many notions lurk, plotting to assault your palate with some SERIOUS FLAVOR. They are so bold that one can easily grow weary of the flavor profile of a generic wine. However, the Grands Crus of Alsace that are great for Gewürztraminer make serious wines indeed, and twenty years of maturity is not unheard-of (if unnecessary).

Gewürztraminer in Late Harvest Form
Of the two levels of late-harvest wines, Vendanges Tardives are often made as dry wine, but this is not commonly true when the raw material is Gewurz. In this form, it is outrageously flamboyant and exotic, more so certainly than any other Alsatian grape. Its aromas and flavors cover a range: coconut, banana creme, litchi, vanilla, peaches, cloves, marmalade, among so many others. I also can't get enough of this when eating Chinese food, from almost any region, as the flavors are generally carried through the dish by soy, and Gewurz VT is just dynamite with soy.

As for the Sélection de Grains Nobles, they can be some of the most sensuous and seductive wines you'll ever have. These wines are still influenced by amplified rose and litchi qualities, but these features are still commonly in the background. Gewurz SGN is such a concentrated, intense wine that a fabulously ripe peach quality comes to the fore, bringing with it a sense vanilla butter cream. The paradox with SGN, having been so concentrated, is that it rarely expresses its natural spice quality amid all the magnification of its other varietal characteristics. I suppose that the spice qualities are absorbed into the character of the botrytis, but whatever the case, Gewürztraminer SGN is a sensational wine of unique qualities.

Gewürztraminer in the Vineyard
Gewürztraminer is difficult to bring from vineyard to winery in good condition for making great wine, as its natural sugars are high, and natural acids are rather low. The high grape sugar means that there is more sugar to turn into alcohol, so its alcohol level is commonly over 13-14%, which still works well with Alsace's rather weighty cuisine. The low acid means that if it isn't carefully grown, it can be flabby and unappealing. Good growers are still able to elicit excellent wine from this quirky grape even in such blisteringly hot vintages as 2003, where good vineyard practices were paramount.

Those who are unfamiliar with growing Gewurz (ge-VURTZ, as it is most commonly called, for obvious reasons) should spend the first three seasons of their newly planted vines' lives working with a great grower, so that when the vines are ready to bear usable fruit, they'll be prepared to keep the wine in balance. The great Alsatian growers of Gewürztraminer routinely find significant enough acidity in their grapes that they often need to leave residual sugar in the final wine for balance, though rarely does the resulting wine taste "sweet."

Food with Gewürztraminer
Gewürztraminer is generally quite food friendly, so long as the food your are serving with it is also strongly flavored. This makes it a good companion during the holidays, when many disparate flavors come together at a Christmas feast. It is also excellent with Alsatian classic dishes--I love it with Choucroute; French Muenster, with which it is such a heavenly companion; pork terrines; the savory (and uncommon) Kugelhopf au lard; and Schieffala (smoked pork and potato casserole).

Popularity: 7% [?]