Helen’s blog

I don’t much enjoy getting old, but one compensation is that I have enjoyed the privilege of watching how a number of wine regions have changed over four decades. I’m particularly intrigued by what I have seen in Alsace.

 

 

A point of reference is provided by the remarkable 2026 harvest.  It’s never wise to jump to too many conclusions about a harvest whose wines are still fermenting. In six months’ time we will have a far better idea of how 2026 has turned out, but even at this early stage some facts leap out.

It was the earlier harvest ever recorded, beginning on 11 August for grapes destined for crémant and from 18 August for other grapes. It was largely complete by the third week of September and it is unlikely anything will be left on the vine into October.  Relatively few vendanges tardives wines will be produced.

The quality of the grapes was remarkably high. After a summer marked by successive heat waves and drought, fungal diseases did not pose a problem.  I tasted freshly picked Muscat grapes (both Ottonel and Petits Grains) in Agathe Bursin’s cellar on 23 September destined for a cuvée of vendanges tardives. They were in wonderful health and full of flavour, a little small perhaps, but that is typical in such a hot, dry year with overall yields well below average.

Some grapes had very high levels of sugar. I tasted a Pinot Noir with Guillaume Mochel that was still fermenting in an earthenware jarre. It was incredibly ripe, with an extraordinary depth of fruit, indeed suggesting black fruit more than red at this early stage, but was still markedly sweet. It was already 15% abv. Frédéric Becht told me some batches of his Pinot Noir had reached 16.5abv.

Yet such high sugar levels are far from uniform. Why there is such a range of outcomes is in part due to the time of picking, but it is also highly dependent on the soil type and exposure of the site in which the grapes are grown. No wine region in the world is quite as divergent as Alsace in this respect and in 2026 the consequences of this are astonishing.

Fermentation methods also play their part, especially with Pinot Noir – temperature and the availability of oxygen are both critical in helping to determine alcohol levels. And in a year of drought excess heat, low nitrogen levels in the grapes, as several growers pointed out, impaired the the effectiveness of yeasts to complete the process of fermentation.

Most grapes harvested in 2026 show very low levels of malic acid, but tartaric acid is also often higher than expected and leaves the musts surprisingly fresh-tasting. Some grapes also have very thick skins and high tannins, but they are ripe.

2026 has been a challenging and sometimes spectacular vintage, but with the exception of the cooler, damp year of 2024 whose wines are often much more restrained and delicate, increasingly hot, early harvests are becoming normal in Alsace.

A dry season like 2026 means that the high percentage of organic growers are happy (around a third of the vineyard is now certified organic or in the process of conversion). It is hardly a surprise then that none of the growers I spoke to (I visited ten independent domains in the week I was there) showed any interest in new resistant varieties (PIWIS). Instead they expressed a concern to find drought-resistant rootstocks for future planting and half of them admitted to already having experimented with varieties not traditional to the region, with a variety of rates of success.

Many hopes are placed on Syrah. Mayer-Fonné’s Syrah Vin de France ‘Sampson’ 2023  grown on the warm, granitic soils of Schlossberg, a Grand Cru site, shows just why. Deep and typically overlain with white pepper, it is full-bodied yet with silky tannins and quite enough black fruit flavours to withstand and benefit from 15 months in small oak barrels. The list of other varieties being tested is long. Some, like Cinsault reflect the warmer climate Alsace now so often experiences, other like Sauvignon Blanc may be a mistake.

But all this aside, Alsace hasn’t changed over forty years quite as much as I expected it might. Apart from the almost universal and sometimes mistaken rejection of Sylvaner, the balance of key varieties in the vineyard has remained much the same, with Riesling heading the list. Will this continue? There are no strong signs to the contrary  despite the observation that three of the ten growers I visited voluntarily wished to point of that Riesling is increasingly stressed and may soon not be sustainable on some of the warmest sites.

Wines from co-plantations often delight critics like me and some have vociferous advocates, none stronger, perhaps that Marcel Deiss. They may well express site in a very special way, but they remain a niche market, but the dominance of single varietal wines has change little in forty years.

Natural wines and with them orange wines are a more recent arrival. They are increasingly easy to find, but their overall impact on the Alsace industry as a whole remains slight. They may be seen by some as the progressive step after conversion to organic, but I am unconvinced as were the group of (admittedly) older wine lovers who kindly  provided me with the excuse of spending a week in Alsace.

There is three times as much crémant being produced  than there was fifty years ago – the destination of much of the Pinot Blanc and Auxerrois grown in Alsace. At the top level at least the quality has increased markedly, especially in the last ten years, with longer times spent on lees and the inclusion of more Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, but this too illustrates one aspect of the Alsace wine industry that has not changed: the number of independent growers has remained much the same with around 20% of total production, while the rest is fairly evenly divided between merchant houses and co-operatives. The quality of wine produced by the latter two categories can be very fine, but I readily accept that my observations here, based solely on conversations with independent producers, may have somewhat distorted my perceptions of wider trends.

What of the wines themselves? The quality of the 110 wines I tasted during in the week I was there was reassuringly high.  There is now some degree of greater clarity about sweetness levels in wines. Sec really does now mean ‘dry’, but many top growers are happy to leave residual sugar in their best Pinot Gris and Gewurztraminer if they feel it balances the wine more generously. Truly sweet wines are becoming increasingly rare, especially those sold as Séléction des Grains Nobles. A hot dry climate does not encourage the development of noble rot.

ore importantly, sweetness levels aside, fermentation techniques, Pinot Noir apart, perhaps, have not changed much in forty years. Perhaps cleanliness levels are higher (all the cellars we visited were spotless) but large old oak foudres are still prized and fermentation temperature are still a little higher than for white wines in other quality wine-producing regions. The wines remain distinctly and recognisably Alsacien.

I would love to know what Alsace wine will be like in 2066. I’m sure there will be some surprises, but I suspect, and rather hope, that it will still display many of the distinctive characteristics that I now recognise.

 

Growers visited and two favourite wines from each

 

Pierre et Frédéric Becht, Dorlisheim

Crément d’Alsace Cuvée Jules, Chardonnay Extra Brut

Real complexity with intense, creamy citrus aromas then great freshness in the mouth and a long creamy finish.

The base wine is aged in a solera system to achieve greater complexity – it works.

 Pinot Noir, Lieu-dit Husaren 2022

Quite deep, with a wonderfully expressive nose of ripe, but juicy cherry fruit and sweet spice. Open on the palate – a fine balance of bitter cherry fruit, fresh acidity and silky tannins.

Not the top red wine here, but perhaps the most elegant.

 

Agathe Bursin, Westhalten

Sylvaner ‘Eminence’ 2025

Big and rich with greengage aromas. Real concentration and length rounded out by a touch of sweetness.

From 100 year-old vines on the Grand Cru Zinnkoepflé

Riesling Dirstelberg 2025

Exuberant spicy peach aromas, quite  full on the palate then a very long mineral finish.

From 78 -year old vines grown on sandstone

 

Frey-Sohler, Scherwiller

Crémant Riesling

Great varietal character – citrus and yet slightly yeasty, Very fresh in the mouth and surprisingly long.

From the 2023 harvest with 2 years on the lees and 7g/l dosage.

 Crémant Riesling 2016 Extra Brut

More complex and autolytic but still with all the distinctive Riesling freshness in the mouth. Long with a satisfyingly dry finish.

9 years aging on lees

 

Paul Ginglinger, Eguisheim

Riesling, Grand Cru Pfersigberg Ortel, Vielles Vignes (Sec), 2023

Immensely complex: spicy with a great depth of ripe fruit – apples, lime with a hint of peach, all of which continue onto the palate, which is sublimely elegant.

Pinot Gris, Les Prelats, 2024

An immediately appealing aroma of gingery ripe melon, balanced in the mouth by fresh acidity, then a long, mouth-filling ripe apple flavour. Dry.

From vines on the clay-sandstone of the Grand Cru Eichberg.

 

Herrbach, Dambach-la Ville

Pinot Noir 2024

Lively red fruits aromas balanced on the palate by juicy acidity and soft tannins, A great little wine.

From clay-rich soils.

Gewurztraminer Grand Cru Frankstein 2024

Intensely spicy, balanced in the mouth between rich, sweet fruit and a long mineral finish.

 

Etienne Loew, Westhoffen

Crémant NV Extra Brut

Fine and elegant with a gently oaky background to the fruit: long, rich and toasty on the palate. Dry finish.

Aged 3 years on the lees, with 20% reserve wines. Partly aged in Burgundian oak ‘demi-muids’ barrels. A third each of Pinot Blanc, Auxerrois and Chardonnay.

Pinot Noir , Westhoffen ‘All you need is Loew’ 2025

Big, spicy, red fruits, soft, rich and surprisingly mouth-filling. No added sulphur.

 

Mayer-Fonné- Katzenthal

Riesling Gand Cru Mandelberg, Vieilles Vignes 2023

A huge, concentrated nose of ripe citrus fruits and lemon sorbet, then hints of more exotic fruits in the mouth, find grained acidity and great length. An exciting wine.

Vines on limestone soil.

 Pinot Gris, Lieu-dit Dorfburg, 2022

A spicy aroma of quince and pear then a dry, round and rich palate, beautifully balanced by juicy acidity. Wonderful!

Again from limestone soils

 

Frédéric Mochel, Traenheim

Crémant Réserve 2018, Brut Nature

Very fine, persistent, refined autolytic aromas, then long and fine in the mouth with apply flavours and a dry finish. Very classy indeed.

80% Chardonnay, 20% Pinot Noir

Riesling Grand Cru, Altenberg de Bergbieten, Cuvée Henriette, 2023

Intense, spicy nose, powerful fine and long in the mouth with beautifully  balanced acidity. Lovely linear focus on the palate.

 

Domaine Schoenheitz, Wihr au Val

Pinot Noir Saint Grégoire 2024

Very pure, bright red cherry aromas, some tannic grip, but altogether beautifully balanced.

From a parcel on the granitic slopes of Herrenreben. Aged 12 months in 25% new oak barrels.

 Alsace Sec, 2023

Immediately attractive minty, grapey aromas with much the same on the palate. Just delicious. Dry. Balanced. Edelzwicker on steroids.

A blend of Sylvaner, Chasselas and Muscat.

 

Domaine Weinbach, Kaysersberg

 Riesling Grand Cru Schlossberg 2024

Incredibly rich and spicy nose. Equally concentrated in the mouth. Linear acid goes right through  to a long mineral finish.

Granitic soils.

Pinots, Grand Cru Furstentum, 2023

Powerful, intense  stone fruit with supporting oaky aromas. Remarkable intensity on the palate, with creamy, barely ripe stone fruit flavours. Very long, oaky finish. Glorious.

Introduction

The French wine industry faces a highly uncertain future. Wineries of all sizes are going out of business.

There are three main reasons for the current crisis. The first is climate change, which has resulted in five catastrophically small harvests in a row in South West France. The second is a marked drop in consumption (in France roughly 3-4% year on year, while global wine consumption is at its lowest since 1961); and the third reason is tariff wars which have deeply affected both the US and Chinese export markets.

In October 2024, Bernard Farges, the president of the CNIV, the body that represents wine growers nationally admitted that ‘overall, business is bad: the crisis is both structural and cyclical’.

The French Government has responded by funding a grubbing up campaign to try to reduce supply to match demand, to accelerate and boost innovation, revive consumption, and set greater export targets. The plan is for 100,000 hectares to be grubbed up, out of more than 750,000 hectares of vines in France as a whole.

In November 2025, €130 million was made available, sufficient to remove 32,500 ha of vines.

Agriculture Minister Annie Genevard argues that:

‘This significant new financial commitment demonstrates the Government’s determination to save our wine industry in the long term and enable it to bounce back. [It is] not just another emergency plan [but] an investment to give our wine industry a future.’

By 17 April, it was reported that 5,823 vignerons had applied to take part to remove 27,926 ha of vines. Smaller producers are mostly attracted to the programme.

Over the previous two years, 27,000 ha of vines have already been removed with government aid, but even more have been grubbed up. For example, the Bordeaux vineyard alone has shrunk from 119,000 hectares in 2019 to 92,000 hectares today.

But there is not yet enough hard data available to measure how effective the programme is proving. There is little clear information, for example, about the impact of the crisis on wine merchants, restaurants, and most importantly from the perspective of this study, direct, or farm-gate sales.

In November, Jean-Marie Fabre, the president of the syndicate of France’s independent winegrowers pleaded for urgent action to save up to a fifth of France’s winegrowers. To achieve this, Bernard Farges believes that the industry needs to be more innovative. Nothing should be taboo and that without necessarily going down the route of de-alcoholised wines, fresher lighter wines, and wines with less tannin are one way to attract new consumers.

What kind of advice is available, then, to winegrowers trying to keep their heads above water?

The NG Vin Training Centre, who offer a wide range of course to industry professionals in the Rhône Valley, provides a model.

They suggest that there are three key factors that wine businesses must take into account in order to secure a profitable future. The first is to think about the market before thinking about products.

The second is to develop a coherent commercial strategy, surely an essential factor in any successful business.

The third is to add value, and maybe diversity, to the business by the means of wine tourism.

Case Studies

This is a case study of three businesses, each very different, each working hard and imaginatively to maintain profitability. My aim is to explore some of the challenges they face, with reference to the causes of the current crisis, together with the three factors for success suggested by NG Vin.

The first case study is in Bordeaux away from the spotlight of the classed growths. The others are in the neighbouring appellations of Bergerac and the Côtes de Duras.

Domaine des Graves d’Ardonneau is at Saint Mariens in the appellation of Blaye Côtes de Bordeaux run by Fanny Rey with her brothers Christian and Laurent, who were chosen by the 2025 Guide Hachette as Bordeaux winemakers of the Year.

There are few signs of grubbing up in progress around Saint Mariens. Fanny told me of just one property in the commune which has chosen to join the scheme, but that is mainly because the vigneron there needs to retire and no-one is available to take over the estate; but as she pointed out further north in the appellation, closer to the town of Blaye itself, it’s a scene of utter ‘desolation’. The same could be said of parts of Côtes de Bordeaux Sainte Foy, just across the road from the Domaine des Allégrets, to which I’ll turn, a little more briefly, later.

Fanny is not convinced that it’s right or often possible to think about markets before products.

‘We’re not particularly into trends’, she says, adding that her grandfather always insisted that trends go out of fashion as quickly as they appear. In the 1960’s, white varieties were grubbed up locally and replaced with red, but Fanny’s grandfather rightly, she believes, remained convinced that white wine would one day again sell better than red. She prefers to stick with the varieties traditional to the area, has little interest in natural wines or orange wines and is emphatically dismissive of alcohol free wines: ‘it makes my hair stand on end. It’s a product associated with wine, but it’s not wine.’ She emphasises the value of flag-ship wines such as a special bottling of ‘exceptional micro-vintages.’

What then, about the second factor for sustainability: the need for a coherent commercial strategy?

Fanny handles the commercial side of the family business. Her personal story helps understand the commercial decisions she makes. She admits to having had little interest in wine or the family estate, but decided to follow a course in business studies in Bordeaux whilst also taking singing lessons at the conservatoire in the city. She was (indeed is) hugely talented and a glittering career on the opera stage was a real possibility.

She had no ambition to make wine herself, but unsure of her future, wondered if she might be able to sell the estate’s wine abroad. She did internships in Germany and England in the hope she might learn how to set up sales outlets there – no easy task. While in Germany, aged 18, she began to taste wine seriously for the first time, discovered that she has a good palate and on returning home asked her father if she could taste all the lines offered by the family. The penny dropped. She also got stage fright. She decided to join the business with fresh enthusiasm and try, as she says, to help it move forward.

New opportunities came while she was still studying. There was a tradition that conservatoire students enjoy a drink together after class. In their favourite bar she tasted a wine from Blaye and pointed out to a friendly waiter that her family’s wine was far better. The owners agreed to taste it, liked it and decided to stock it. Another bar owner discovered it and liked it so much that he showed it to some Vietnamese clients who found a way to make a modest order. She still sells wine to Vietnam. Most other exports are to mainland Europe.

Sales for the Rey family are predominantly to a wide base of individual, private customers – 70% of the total production. 15% is sold to the trade in France and 15% is exported.

Fanny insists that word of mouth matters. She has discovered that it has the potential to bring in the individual customers who are the bedrock of her business today.

She also stresses that securing client loyalty can no longer be taken for granted. Customers today can be very volatile. ‘They’ll spend a year with a new winegrower, but it’s not certain they’ll come back.’ And so, she argues, ‘to build their loyalty we focus on consistent quality and consistent prices’ – a key element of as the need for a coherent commercial strategy. ‘This year’, she admits, ‘we’ve been forced to increase prices a little more than in other years – around 15 centimes per bottle. For us, that’s huge.’ But they have not increased the price of the bag-in-box offer for three years.

The size of the property (70 hectares) is critical. Economy of scale helps greatly, as the grubbing up figures testify. Or to put it another way as Fanny herself suggests, ‘we focus more on quantity sold than on price’. The Rey family support this by working hard to ensure that other costs, such as increases in transport costs and packaging are not automatically passed onto the consumer.

Fanny is bluntly critical of competitors who have been quick to raise prices, sometimes substantially, in recent years. She believes that those who hiked their prices after every rise in production lost customers.

The Rey family practices a very conservative approach to the funding of the business: ‘only spend one coin when you have two’. They avoid borrowing as much as possible, especially expensive bank loans. The goal is to invest money back into technology to improve the quality of the wine they offer.

They believe that a key factor in maintaining customer loyalty is consistent quality, even if this means withholding wines that are not worthy of the label as happened in 2013. Put simply, Fanny insists that such an approach may be characterised by honesty – a quality she believes is essential in running a truly successful business .

In order to maintain contact with customers, the estate sends out regular newsletters electronically and in the post and maintains generous opening hours. The family try to make every customer feel valued, even if they buy just three or four bottles.

Fanny’s parents also maintain contact with a number of customers through a modest programme of participation in relatively small local wine fairs, especially in western France, two or three hours away. This is achievable only because they have time to devote to this kind of selling. It is not a long-term element in the success of the business, for as Fanny says bluntly, fairs are dying out. The best way to find new customers remains word of mouth and then to establish as warm a connection with customers as possible. And the bottom line is that sales to private customers maintain the greatest margins.

In order to maintain integrity of the offer to private customers, all the wine sold in France to the trade is labelled differently. Since 2009, two wines have been available exclusively to the trade, sold as ‘Château la Croix du Lys’. Production costs are kept as low as possible to maintain margins, but the aim is to enable the trade to sell one wine at a price similar to that of the wines available to private customers, and one that’s significantly cheaper.

Finally, what of the third factor for sustainability suggested by NG Vin, wine tourism?

Fanny’s firm belief that it is essential to focus on the estate’s core business strategy which, as it stands, leaves little room for diversification. She admits that she has been tempted to use one family property as a gîte, but then came to the conclusion that it was not a practicable proposition.

It’s clear that Fanny and her family know their market intimately and supply what it wants matched by a thoroughly well-defined commercial strategy. And it works well.

In Bergerac, or more properly the appellation of Monbazillac, roughly 90km to the south west of Saint Mariens, the Metifet family think a little differently. Their estate is a similar size to Graves d’Ardonneau with 75 hectares, but it is farmed organically. For Laurence and Philippe Metifet wine tourism is an essential and growing part of their business plan, along with an increasingly diverse offer of wines. That apart, there are also some striking similarities with Graves d’Ardonneau, not least the customer base with 70% private sales, 20% trade and 10% export. Just as with Graves d’Ardonneau a second label is dedicated exclusively for trade sales.

Other similarities include regular mailings and a commitment to giving time to clients when they arrive at the cellar door. The backbone of their offer is AOP wines from Bergerac, Côtes de Bergerac and Monbazillac, but they have been more open to experimentation, offering, for example, a varietal, barrel-fermented Chenin Blanc, an orange wine and a ‘pét-nat’ sparkler. Laurence insists that these wines do not just appeal to younger clients: there is a significant market for those who prize both local and organic products. She is not tempted to try new PIWI resistant varieties, but is more open to other varieties not traditional to the area, for example, Chardonnay and Touriga Nacional.

Like Fanny, Laurence dismisses the idea of zero alcohol ‘wine’ commenting that, ‘it would be better to stick to grape juice.’

Even more than at Saint Mariens, fickle weather provoked by climate change has been the greatest challenge to profitability. In 2024, 90% of the crop was lost to hail and the books had to be balanced with the help of €20,000 prize draw. The same summer, the family employed a social influencer to boost their presence on the internet and to attract new customers. She made quite an impact with videos achieving up to 25,000 views.

Like the Rey family, the Metifet family have valued the contact with loyal clients afforded in the past by small, local wine fairs (something that Fanny’s parents take responsibility for), but eschew larger fairs which, as Laurence points out, are attended often by those with a strong interest only in finding novelties.

The most striking difference between the two estates is the Metifet’s whole-hearted embracing of wine tourism. Their offer includes guided tours and tastings, including blind tastings, brunches, informal evenings with food and live music and ‘wine gaming’ a cunning mixture of wine education and team building. They find that such events are particularly attractive to tourists and second home owners, who then become regular customers and receive regular monthly mailings and news of special promotions.

Future plans include the possibility of a top-class restaurant on site. The bottom line for Laurence is that ‘we need to do something apart from just producing wine.’ But a personal touch is hugely important. It is not for nothing that the estate’s slogan is ‘Cultive le vin. Récolte les rencontres’ (‘make wine, harvest the encounters.’).

My third example is less than 20 km away, just across the departmental border into the Côtes de Duras, where Julien Blanchard of Domaine des Allégrets has 23 hectares of vines farmed organically and 8 hectares of plum trees, from which he produces top quality pruneaux d’Agen. Around 60% of his sales are to private customers, with most of the rest sold to the trade.

Like Laurence Metifet, Julien is keen to experiment with new styles of wine, especially orange wine and natural wine. He is open to experimenting with some new varieties including new resistant varieties, but having worked hard to promote the local appellation, he is reluctant to abandon a brand which he feels means a lot to many of his existing customers. For him too it is not simply a matter of putting market before product.

Climate change has also hit him hard, with around 70% loss of crop in recent years. His business plan depends on having sufficient stock in hand to meet demand, but this is fast diminishing.

The greatest problem he faces is that so much depends on him alone. It is one thing to make wine, it is altogether another to have to sell it and time is limited. Just as in the strategy of the other two studies, his parents depended greatly on local wine fairs for sales: up to a dozen between Rennes in the north and Toulouse in the south. When a recent illness prevented him from taking part in the annual round, Julien wrote to established customers to ask if they would like wine delivered. None replied. Fairs are no longer part of his plan.

For the last three years he has concentrating more effort on regular consumer events, which take most Friday evenings, with occasional, longer ‘festive’ weekends in a converted building on the estate – named after his centenarian grandfather, ‘Lulu’s Wine Barn’. He and his partner have tried to create an intimate atmosphere in which a wide variety of food is served in partnership with local producers, live music, quiz nights, the opportunity watch major sporting events and, of course, an opportunity to enjoy and buy wine from the estate.

The clientele is younger than those who bought from fairs, with an average age of around 50 and is made up half of locals and half ex-pat Brits. The success of Lulu’s has been through word of mouth. Satisfied customers tell their friends. They become brand ambassadors. Although he notes that younger consumers are attracted to his alternative products, especially natural and orange wines, the context of Lulu’s, enables other customers to discover how good they can be. They then buy them.

The sheer effort of trying to fulfil different roles causes him to wonder what steps he should take next. He is not short of ideas, but notes, for example, that although he is deeply committed to the philosophy of organic wine production, which costs more to make, he doubts that his most loyal customers would notice if he reverted to a conventional methods of production. He is minded to reduce his work load in the vineyard by reducing the number of hectares under vine and to stop selling wine to the trade, which he finds time-consuming and unprofitable. He will then try to further increase the quality of a smaller production aimed specifically at individual customers.

Conclusions

What conclusions can we draw? The strength of case studies lies in their particularity. Although they have no statistical significance they are much more than an illustrative device. They can be used, as I hope I have shown here, to qualify or disprove general statements, raise and refine questions and, it may be hoped, suggest new insights.

Of the three factors for a profitable future identified by NG Vin, the advice to put markets before products is not an easy starting point for long-established businesses, especially those earthed in and often highly committed to the notion of a protected designation of origin. But all three of our case studies demonstrate that it is the quality of their products that is indispensable, whether or not new products are also added to entice new markets.

All three have embraced a coherent commercial strategy, albeit in rather different ways. Such a strategy is indispensable. The example of Graves d’Ardonneau shows that a very traditional estate, run well, can still keep afloat, the other two properties, whilst also embracing that principle, have come to rely on a greater diversification of their offer, both in what they sell and how they go about it. For Haut Monlong and Domaine des Allégrets, wine tourism is now an integral and essential element in their continued success.

All three businesses in this study have been hit by climate change and the decline in consumption of wine, but all three have avoided the perils of export tariff changes by concentrating on expanding their local, individual customer base. Where a winery is situated inevitably clearly has a considerable impact on its chance of success. It is not necessarily the case that independent growers in unfashionable or overlooked appellations face a greater challenge than those in the most prestigious appellations.

If there is any further common characteristic for success it is the recognition that in a declining market it is increasingly hard work to find new customers and to keep established clients, but sheer force of personality and self-belief goes a long way to counter this. It shows that even estates in less fashionable regions may be surprisingly and encouragingly resilient.

(This article has also been published by the Circle of Wine Writers in ‘The Circular’)

A short professional visit to some of the leading producers in almost any wine region may offer a rather distorted view of what’s happening there more widely.  For example, during such a trip to Alsace with the Association of Wine Educators back in March, of the hundred or so wines we tasted, no less than a dozen could be described as either natural wine, orange wine – or both. But this doesn’t (yet) represent a more general trend.

 

A quick look at the list of wines produced by the leading co-operative cellars or the larger merchant houses, which together represent 80% of total production reveals that while there plenty of organic wines on offer, there are, for example, many more examples of de-alcoholised wines than orange wine or ‘natural’ wine (made with minimal intervention and little or no added sulphur). Indeed, I could only  find a single orange wine in the co-op lists and no natural wine at all.

 

All the examples we tasted came from just two of the nine producers we met, and yet, wider change is in the air. Alsace felt significantly different from my last visit just before Covid, with the effects of climate change ever more marked.

 

There’s talk generally amongst the leading growers about plantings of a wide range of experimental grape varieties including resistant PIWI varieties, all detailed in the September 2024 Cahier des Charges. Alsace may still be predominantly white wine territory, but in addition to Pinot Noir, now one in ten of every bottle of Alsace wine, growers are fascinated by the possibility of Syrah and Nebbiolo, as well as Malbec, Nielluccio and even Grenache, though only the first two are specified in the Cahier  des Charges. There are an increasing number of producers who believe that the future of red Alsace wine lies more soundly with these experimental varieties and others than with Pinot Noir.

 

It’s clear that at the top level, at least, styles are changing too, with, for example, fewer sweet wines now being made. And the almost inexorable march towards organic viticulture  has not lost any momentum. The Chambre d’Agriculture d’Alsace records that in 2023 34% of the Alsatian vineyard  was registered organic, with 8% certified biodynamic.

 

Some of these changes are both considerable and remarkable.  One of the most striking examples is provided Lucas Rieffel, whose winemaking I have long admired. He has taken the decision to only make natural wines. I was, I confess, rather taken back by this. I hadn’t expected it and I wasn’t sure what to make of his range. I don’t like all of them. I’ll be honest, but I see from my notes the words ‘big’ and ‘rich’ on several occasions, covering, to my surprise both Sylvaner and Riesling as well as Gewurztraminer and crémant, his l’Emprise 2019 – a hugely complex blend of Chardonnay and Pinot Gris from the Grand Cru Kirchberg de Barr aged almost four years on the lees. He charges a price as if it were a fine, grower Champagne. Entirely justified in my book, but the high prices for many of his still wines are proportionately higher still. There must be a market for them.

 

Quite what that market is remains a little unclear and how sustainable it is in the long term is clearly another open question. I need to do some more serious research here, but I suspect that many such wines appeal most strongly to younger drinkers, whose consumption of wine has otherwise fallen significantly. But they must be very well-heeled.

 

The appeal of orange wine, is perhaps a little broader, even when made with otherwise minimal intervention. It tends to offer, new and often intriguing flavours and works well with food too. Lucas offers some interesting examples, but Adrien Stoeffler convinced me more with, for example, a kind of half-way house to the full-blown orange experience in his ‘Fue Follet’ 2023, a third each of Muscat, Pinot Gris and Gewurztraminer given five to seven days of skin contact – just enough to develop fine aromatic complexity and deliciously pithy, almost crunchy fruit flavour.  I bought some – ever the acid test and not least because his prices are far more modest that those asked by Lucas.

 

It remains to seen whether or not, many other growers will follow Lucas and Adrien on the natural path in part or in full, but even those who shy from that path recognise that their wines are different from those they made even a few years ago.

 

Back then, the very remarkable wines of Marcel Deiss were generally perceived as being on the more experimental edge of the Alsace offering. His meticulous approach combined to a reference for terroir over varietal character – hence his love for and profound  commitment to ‘complantation’ –  has not been widely adopted by other growers.  Biodynamic since 1997, he was at the forefront of that revolution in Alsace, and although he makes some magnificent wines with no added sulphur and very little intervention (for example, Le Jeu de Verts , Gruenspiel – the 2022 is a bone dry wine of remarkable energy), his approach remains subtly and distinctively different.

 

Most mainstream estates that have converted organic and biodynamic viticulture maintain a preference for the subtle interplay between site and variety and even if they may produce the occasional orange or natural wine, do so, it would seem to enable them to offer a greater range of options to their consumers.  I sense that there are few who are prepared to follow Lucas Rieffel down his completist path. And yet, many mainstream styles are changing too. They have to, despite  the expectations of the French domestic market, Alsace’s customer by far, which still associates Alsace with easy-drinking accessible wines, that offer reliability, but not much excitement.

 

Olivier Humbrecht pointed out to us with a rise of 1.6C in annual temperature every ten years and less water available to meet the plants’ needs, change is inevitable. Harvest comes ever earlier, damper soils are more prized and the possibility of making traditional sweet styles is getting ever more challenging. These may become so rare that they will be become little more than a fond memory – for some.  Drier styles are now specified in the Cahier des Charges: rosé must not exceed 4g/l residual sugar and red wine not more than 2g/l, while Riesling, if not specifically made in a late harvest style, may not exceed 6g/l sugar if enriched and not more than 9 g/l if the tartaric acid is no more than 6 g/l or 12 g/l if the tartaric acidity exceeds 6 g/l. No longer is it possible  with these wines, at least, to moan, as many colleagues seemed to take delight in doing, that the consumer has little idea how sweet an Alsace wine might be.

 

And despite the challenge of never quite knowing what the weather, ever more extreme, might throw at you, the wines made by top producers have never, I feel, been finer. During our short visit, which included the estates of Pierre et Frédéric Becht, Agathe Bursin, Frédéric Mochel,  Schoenheitz and Zind-Humbrecht in addition to those I’ve already mentioned in passing, we were consistently treated to wines with flair, precision and finesse, across all the significant grape varieties and predominantly from organic or biodynamic viticulture, but not exclusively so.

 

One of the clear improvement across the board is in the quality of crémant over the last decade: there are many more wines with much greater complexity and focus, frequently with little or no dosage, often given much longer on the lees than the minimum allowed for the appellation and in Becht’s case the adoption of a solera system to add far greater depth and interest by including a far more significant proportion of reserve wine than has been the norm in Alsace in the past.

 

Yes, Alsace is changing. It remains to be seen whether or not the minority but significant presence of natural and orange wines will gain further momentum. I suspect that they won’t, but the move to drier styles and, before long, the appearance of new varietals will, I suspect, provide a more sustainable impetus to the profile of Alsace, especially on the export market than the much heralded official acceptance of Premier Cru sites.

 

Back in the domestic market in France, at the entry-level prices and with such little apparent public expectations of either change or increasing quality, the future is harder to predict. I found it fascinating to see that in my local supermarket in Haute-Vienne during the much touted ‘fête des vins’ that pops up every autumn, offering some significant price reductions, the range of Alsace wines on offer was disappointing and as far as I could see, they were hardly flying off the shelves. Perhaps this road block  will represent a greater challenge to the region’s fortunes than the outcome of the choices faced by the elite few that delight the attention of wine writers like me.