Wines and Sub Regions of Alsace

Alsace is bro­ken down into two divi­sions the Haut-Rhin to the south and Bas Rhine to the north. Both areas pro­duce high qual­ity wine in the lower slopes, which face east towards Ger­many. The grape vari­eties for this region include:

• Ries­ling is from Noble Vari­etal. Ries­ling is a good steely, fine fruit with a high acid­ity. Ries­ling is also ideal for the pro­duc­tion of late har­vest wines.
• Gewurz­traminer is from a Noble Vari­etal. Gewurz is the Ger­man word for spice. The nose of this wine is very flo­ral and has a lot of spicy notes. Gewurz­traminer is low in acid­ity but high in alco­hol. This type of wine is great with Asian Cui­sine includ­ing Thai food.
• Pinot Gris is from a Noble Vari­etal. Pinot Gris– Has a sim­i­lar pink­ish hue as Gewurz­traminer but it has more flavours such as dried fruit, smoky and or honey character.
• Mus­cat is from a Noble Vari­etal. This grape is on the decline in Alsace. It has huge prob­lems with being prone to rot and also has a low yield mak­ing it very dif­fi­cult for viti­cul­tur­ist to work with. Mus­cat is very dry and has grapey mus­cat flavour.
• Pinot Blanc is a light, refresh­ing wine that is see­ing some growth in this region. It is usu­ally used in the region for the pro­duc­tion of sparkling wine.
• Syl­vaner was once the crown jewel of Alsace but has since been dethroned. It mostly grows in Bas-Rhin and is mostly used in blends, as it doesn’t really have any dis­tin­guish­ing flavours.
• Pinot Noir is the only red wine grown in this region and it is mostly grown for local con­sumers, who want some­thing more than white wine. There are two styles, the tra­di­tional fruity rose and typ­i­cal light body red wine that you would find in North America.

There are four clas­si­fi­ca­tions for Alsace wines that you will find on the label when pur­chas­ing these wines. Alsace AC (Appel­la­tion Con­trolee) or Vin d’Alsace AC, the latt

 

er makes up 80% of wines pro­duced in this region. You will usu­ally find indi­vid­ual grape vari­ety on the label, such as Ries­ling. Alsace Grand Cru AC cur­rently has 51 vine­yards that fall under this clas­si­fi­ca­tion. They also must only pro­duce sin­gle noble vari­eties of Ries­ling, Mus­cat, Gewurz­traminer or Pinot Gris. The label will include the vine­yard along with the vari­etal, for exam­ple Plaf­fen­heim Ries­ling. The next two clas­si­fi­ca­tions are based on the ripeness of the grapes. Ven­dan­tonge Tar­dive (VT) which means Late Har­vest is only made from 4 noble grapes and can be either dry or sweet. Selec­tion de Grains Nobles (SGN) or Selec­tion of Noble Rot­ten Grapes is only pro­duced in great wine pro­duc­tion years and are always sweet. The wines from this clas­si­fi­ca­tion are only made from one of the four noble grapes.