Sunday, May 20, 2012

The Grapes

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Posted by Burke Morton On August - 25 - 2009

RieslingMost of the wines made in Alsace are sold under a label bearing the name of the grape variety.  There are ten (technically eleven) grape varieties that can be grown for AOC designation in Alsace:

Click on each of the grape varieties to find out more.

Grapes in Alsace need not be sold as pure varietal wine. The tradition of making blends is longer than the tradition of single variety (which is itself quite old, see here for more details), but the blends have been relegated to second-class status, at least as far as the Grands Crus are concerned. Grand Cru wines can only be a single variety. The INAO relaxed this regulation in 2005 to accommodate Jean-Michel Deiss of Domaine Marcel Deiss and his blended wines from the Altenberg de Bergheim. The change in the law also brought the Kaefferkopf vineyard and its traditional Gewurztraminer-Riesling (and occasionally Pinot Gris) blend into the Grand Cru echelon, which it has long deserved (the proprietors who owned vines in Kaefferkopf had previously refused to permit the vineyard to be a Grand Cru if they could not make Grand Cru blends).

What's Technical About the Eleventh Grape?
The eleventh grape allowed in AOC Alsace wines usually only goes in to the subcategory of AOC Crémant d'Alsace, where it is used as a blending partner with Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris, and Riesling--it gives it great sparkling wine pedigree, and it is:

    Rogue Cépage
    Chardonnay

While Chardonnay is officially sanctioned for sparkling wine, it is not permissible to make an AOC Alsace wine exclusively from Chardonnay, or with Chardonnay in the blend at all. Several producers are making Vin d'Table of 100% Chardonnay, however, and I've had some that will make you wish they'd relax that rule too.

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