Alsace is France’s most exciting wine region at the moment. No other area offers the diversity of wines from such an array of grape types, soils, microclimates and producers, which in return gives consumers some of the most complex and unique wines in the world. That’s why I came to Alsace this year for over three weeks and tasted more than 650 different wines. I also came to create a list of my 100 Top Alsace wines in 2015 from the wines I tasted and an annual guide to the best wines with crystal producer Lalique.

Riesling dominates this year’s Top 100 list and from some of the best vineyards in Alsace. I still believe that the grape type is the best communicator of the best soils and microclimates of the region. This is why almost half the wines in the Top 100 list are rieslings, and they are all from superb vineyards, regardless if they are rated grand cru or not.
My Alsace Wine of the Year illustrates my point. A new single vineyard bottling from the Trimbach family, the FE Trimbach Riesling Alsace Grand Cru Geisberg is a phenomenal dry riesling showing all the depth, intensity, and character that this amazing hillside vineyard can produce. It’s also a praise-worthy example of how so many
of the top producers of Alsace are embracing single vineyard bottles, giving the wine world more unique wines from unique places that compete with the best anywhere in the world. In fact, nearly all of the wines in the Top 100 had some sort of single vineyard designation.
Another important point in my Top 100 was the inclusion of so many pinot noirs. The great reds of Alsace are now some of the best and most distinctive pinot noirs in the world. They combine the finesse and complexity of the best of Burgundy with a special minerality and linear structure that cannot be duplicated anywhere else in the world.

As the list is very personal, I tend to favor dry wines, although off-dry and sweet wines were not penalized. The list is not simply an order of the top scoring wines from the hundreds of Alsace wines I tasted this year. It’s a combination of the top scoring wines, and wines that I think are
 the most exciting to drink. And, of course, they represent some of the best and most interesting wines in Alsace in 2015. Enjoy my first list of the Top 100 wines of Alsace. —James Suckling, CEO/Editor