From €18.30, £18.50, 20.79 Swiss francs
The best co-ops in Alsace such as those of Hunawhir and Turckheim offer superb value and I was delighted to have been sent samples from the Cave Vinicole de Hunawihr as part of the Alsace Millésimes promotional tasting for wine writers earlier this year. Julia and Tam were also recipients of a series of 3-cl sample bottles of four wines from multiple producers. Members of our Purple Pages can read all our 90 tasting notes on Rieslings and The rest.
I was sent two Rieslings and a Gewurztraminer as well as their very creditable Cuvée 8 Pinot Noir 2019 from the Cave Vinicole de Hunawihr that I really, really enjoyed, including this one from the Rosacker Grand Cru vineyard, source of the iconic dry Riesling, Trimbach’s Clos Ste Hune, which usually costs about £250 a bottle.
Rosacker is the 26-ha (64-acre) east- and south-east-facing site at 260 to 330 m (850–1,080 ft) shown above, above the village of Hunawihr and based on dolomitic limestone – hence the refreshing nature of the wines it produces. Riesling is grown in 65% of the vineyard with Gewurztraminer the next most important variety and a bit of Pinot Gris. (No messing about with less-than-noble varieties in this grand cru.) According to the official Alsace wines website, ‘this terroir has one of the strongest personalities in the wine-growing area’. The shadow of the Vosges means that the grapes ripen especially slowly, resulting in unusual intensity. The deep soils almost always keep the vines usefully moist and are low in potassium, which means low pH and high total acidity in the resultant wines. Even the Gewurztraminers are taut, Rieslings especially so.
I’m always looking out for wines that deliver the tension and intensity of Clos Ste Hune without the price tag – even if without quite the longevity of this famously slow-maturing wine. Hence my wines of the week last September, the 2020 and 2021 versions by talented winemaker Julien Schaal. This week’s example is even better value.
The 100-plus members of the Cave Vinicole de Hunawihr own 11 of Rosacker’s 26 hectares, 5.6 ha of which are Riesling, source of the co-op’s flagship wine. (They also own another two hectares of grand cru vineyards shared between Froehn, Sporen, Schoenenbourg and Osterberg.)
Here’s my tasting note on Cave Vinicole de Hunawihr, Rosacker Riesling 2021 Alsace Grand Cru:
Intense and intensely mineral nose. There's a real edge to this wine which has masses of both extract and acidity. It's still very youthful (though not nearly as youthful as I'd imagine Clos Ste Hune 2021 would be at this stage). It's just starting to open out but this will surely continue to gain complexity for many years. Admirable persistence already. Probably GV.
It’s 13.5% alcohol and I reckon you could drink it any time from now until 2031. It has 7 g/l of residual sugar which is barely perceptible thanks to its total acidity of 8.2 g/l. I gave it 17 points out of 20.
The wine (the bottle of 2019 pictured above is taken from stockist NY Wines’ website) is imported into the UK by Liberty Wines and is available in quite an array of UK independents as well as being listed by Wine-Searcher in Italy, Switzerland, Ireland and by the Finnish monopoly Alko.
I also enjoyed the same producer’s Muehlforst Riesling 2021 Alsace from a lieu-dit – a very pretty, delicate wine – very different from the much more steely and intense Rosacker Riesling – as well as their Rosacker Gewurztraminer 2020 Alsace Grand Cru, which I scored 17.5 but it seems more difficult to find, presumably made in smaller quantities. Here’s my tasting note for this 14.4% wine that I suggest drinking over the next five years:
RS 28 g/l so classified moelleux.
Deep gold. Wonderfully heady, complex, indubitably Gewurz nose with a savoury, pungent edge. Very broad of beam. Has just enough minerally acidity to carry the sweetness. Lots of pleasure here already! Just a tiny bit of bitterness on the finish – no bad thing. Scrummy and with lots of layers. Carries its alcohol well.
We try to have our wines of the week available in the US. In this case, US-based Alsace wine lovers can find (much) older vintages of both Rosacker wines described above, not least from Sol Stars Wines. These mature wines might taste even better than the current releases.
The co-op has its own online store but – wouldn’t you know it? – none of the three wines featured above is offered there. But the prices look very good and there are some older vintages available. Worth trying?
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