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.
