The Majesty of Alsace Grand Crus and Uncovering Koshu in Japan: Weekly Tasting Report (Oct 11-17)

Senior Editor Stuart Pigott tasted some excellent wines from Alsace, France, over the past week plus some really great ones – none more remarkable than the grand crus from Domaine Marcel Deiss in Bergheim. This was no surprise in itself because Deiss has been making excellent wines since at least the late 1980s, when Stuart started visiting the winery, but it was the first time that the newest of Deiss’s grand crus, the Schlossberg, achieved a really spectacular score.

The Domaine Marcel Deiss Alsace Grand Cru Schlossberg 2020 is one of the wines of the vintage in the region. The aromas of baked peach and apricot are married to a strict minerality and remarkable northerly freshness for the southerly location. The wine is incredibly precise and pristine at the crystalline finish, which extends to the distant horizon. It is a truly spectacular wine that should delight anyone who loves mineral dry whites or rieslings.

The Domaine Marcel Deiss Alsace Grand cru Altenberg Bergheim 2019 is no less amazing in a richer, more mouth-filling direction. The aromas of toasted rye bread, forest honey, candied orange and preserved Persian lemons flow from the glass. The wine is just beginning to reveal its profundity at the incredibly complex finish. Somewhere in there is a whisker of unfermented grape sweetness, but the palate is so cavernous it’s very hard to pin it down. And that’s just one of the extraordinary aspects of this masterpiece!

You probably wondered where the grape variety designations for these wines went to, because varietal bottling is normal in Alsace. The Deiss family are pioneers of field blends and non-varietal wines, having started dropping the varietal names from the label in the final years of the last century. The wines seem to have grown in originality since then, and Deiss’s success with their radical back-to-the-roots strategy encouraged more and more of their colleagues to follow their example.

As astonishing as those two grand cru wines are, read the notes below and you will find a slew of other wines that Mathieu Deiss made with the assistance of his father, Jean-Michel, and his partner, Marie-Helene Cristofaro – seven of which are rated 95 points or higher. Many of them are from vineyard sites that were unknown until recently, only gaining a reputation through the Deiss family’s wines. And then there are a couple of new skin-macerated, bone-dry whites that are striking innovations. For us there’s no doubt that this is one of the leading handful of wineries in Alsace and one of the top white wine producers of France.

Stuart also tasted some remarkable wines from Domaine Valentin Zusslin in Orschwihr, a much less well known corner of Alsace. We have been fans of the wines that Jean-Paul and Marie Zusslin have been making for many years. Many of their best wines come from the lieu-dit (French for a named but unclassified site) Bollenberg, and the most remarkable of the new wines they showed us was the Domaine Valentin Zusslin Riesling Alsace Bollenberg-Neuberg 2020. At three years of age it is still very youthful, but the concentration and aromatic complexity are already clear. We love the salty and stony minerality that pours over you in one great wave. Scan the notes below for the bunch of other excellent wines from Zusslin.

The Paul Kubler winery in nearby Soultzmatt also impressed with a number of wines, none more so than the Paul Kubler Gewürztraminer Grand Cru Zinnkoepfle 2020. Gewurztraminer can be overwhelmingly aromatic, viscous, alcoholic and bittersweet, which is not a combination that lights our fire. This wine is the opposite of that, being delicately floral (rose petals and honeysuckle) with a fabulously silky texture and a hint of natural sweetness well balanced by freshness. If gewurztraminer always tasted like this, we would be big fans!

KOSHU AND MORE FROM JAPAN

Senior Editor Ned Goodwin MW witnessed ingenious work with botrytis during his Japan tastings in Yoichi, Hokkaido, but while producers up north have not necessarily traveled in order to accrete winemaking experience, winemaker Takahiko Soga’s minimalist incantations about soft water over hard and his exhortations of local wines with Japanese food may hold certain truths. But Ned was pining for a bit more structure in his wines, so off he flew to Tokyo before a long train journey to Matsumoto.

Matsumoto lies at the foothills of the Japanese Alps, in Nagano prefecture. Here, in a large home with a tatami holding room for the bottles, Ned set up base to taste over 200 Japanese wines.

Nagano is Japan’s second-largest wine producing zone, with approximately 23 percent of production. It boasts promising merlot, quality cabernet and blends, and in the right hands, good zweigelt. Delicious examples include the Villa d’Est Merlot Nagana Tazawa 2018, a dead ringer for a luncheon claret and ready to drink in large drafts with a gentle chill, and the Goichi Wine Merlot Nagano Hayashi Winery 2020, which is a bit plumper and more complex.

Neighboring Yamanashi prefecture is Japan’s largest wine-producing region, responsible for around 30 percent of the country’s output, much of it reliant on the neutral variety koshu. Koshu is originally from the Caucasus region of Georgia and was likely brought to Japan via the ancient Silk Road. It has vinifera DNA and capable of good wines despite low acidity, a phenolic curb and  a mottled pink hue. Koshu is prone to boisterous yields and coulure in the vineyard, making pergola the training system of choice for many of the 80 or so producers.

Ned’s tasting suggested that many producers embrace koshu’s neutrality as a template for the diverse table. Ned calls this sort of approach “wines that don’t get in the way.” On the other hand, one can glean more textural detail and aroma from the variety via lees handling as with muscadet, or via extended maceration, to deliver scents of ginger and spice that the compounds in the grape skins deliver. These are placated by koshu’s inherently chewy texture.

Coco Farms delivers across stylistic interpretations, as does Mercian, a large but consistently reliable producer. The Aruga Branca Yamanashi Clareza Sur Lie Distincta Mente 2022 is an example of deft lees work, while the MGVS Koshu Yamanashi K2 2020 and Seven Cedars Winery Koshu Yamanashi Barrel Fermented 2022 are richer, replete with a lick of oak to evince just the right amount of authority. Most exciting, perhaps, is the 98 Wines Yamanashi Nogi White 2020 and its pear drop, gingerbread and freshly lain tatami riffs. In fact, this is a Yamanashi winery producing exceptional wines on all fronts!

One can also craft delicious fizz with koshu in a frothy, joyous style as with the Wasaki Winery Terroir Iwai Koshu Sparkling and Domaine Oyamada Koshu Yamanashi Iwai Katsunuma 2019, each a delicious rendition brimming with resinous scents of orchard fruits towed long into a bright future at large.

MARGARET RIVER MARVELS

The latest wines from Australia’s Fraser Gallop Estate were this week’s highlights of our tastings in Hong Kong. Their estate vineyards in Western Australia’s Margaret River are planted to a mix of red Bordeaux varieties on their warmer, north-facing slopes, and white varieties like sauvignon, semillon and chardonnay on their south-facing slopes.

We were most impressed by the Fraser Gallop Estate Chardonnay Margaret River Palladian 2022, a selection of their best rows. It’s full of complexity, from baked apples to toasted brioche and salted caramel aromas, full-bodied but with the region’s distinct bright acidity.

Only three 500-liter French oak puncheons of Palladian are made each vintage. The Fraser Gallop Estate Cabernet Sauvignon Margaret River Palladian 2020 also shined with its fragrance and elegance, and it's just opening up. It is 100 percent cabernet – a selection of their best rows. Check out their Bordeaux-style red and white blends, too, under their Parterre label that represents the region. All the wines are screw cap.

– Stuart Pigott, Ned Goodwin MW and Claire Nesbitt contributed reporting.

The list of wines below is comprised of bottles tasted and rated during the past week by James Suckling and the other tasters at JamesSuckling.com. They include many latest releases not yet available on the market, but which will be available soon. Some will be included in upcoming tasting reports.

Note: You can sort the wines below by country, vintage, score and alphabetically by winery name. You can also search for specific wines in the search bar.