F. E. Trimbach, Pinot Gris Réserve Personelle, 2013

F. E. Trimbach, Pinot Gris Réserve Personelle, 2013

  • icon-type Type

    White

  • icon-year Year

    2013

  • icon-style Style

    Dry

  • icon-country Country

    France

  • icon-alcohollevel Alcohol level

    14%

  • icon-grapevariety Grape variety
    Pinot Gris 100%
  • Rating

    JR 17.5, JS 93, RP 90, WS 92

Pinot Gris Réserve Personelle is not made every vintage. Only in exceptional years, a selection of the best parcels (including Grand Cru Osterberg) produces a wine of great maturity, opulence with succulent fruit. The long development of the wine is synonymous with its long ageing potential, 10 years and more.

This highly complex, broad and voluptuous wine, retains its structure thanks to its vitality.

A light golden colour with a very floral nose. Ripe stone fruits shine through, as do some exotic fruits too. The wine is full-bodied and structured well around its acididy.

A lesser known detail...

The 40ha of Trimbach's plots sit on the geological Ribeauvillé fault line that offers a rich mosaic of soils (limestone, sandstone, marl, clay, etc.) for the grapes to develop.

About F. E. Trimbach

The House of Trimbach was established in 1626 and is now being run by the 12th generation of the family, Pierre and Jean. The family supervises all operations from planting and vinification to selection and bottling, giving them 100% control over production.

If Zind Humbrecht produces wines of extravagant power at one end of the spectrum of excellence within Alsace wine making, then Trimbach definitely stands at the other extreme – “Restraint” is the watchword. The Trimbach style is paraphrased perfectly by Hubert Trimbach and the family itself – “Concentrated not heavy; fruity, not sweet; bracing rather than fat; polite rather than voluptuous".

Trimbach wines are reserved, steely, elegant, even aristocratic; never obvious or flashy. "We are Protestants. Our wines have the Protestant style – vigour, firmness, a beautiful acidity, lovely freshness. Purity and cleanness, that’s Trimbach.” For those weary of the copious residual sugar found in so many of the contemporary Alsace wines, Trimbach’s are a refuge.

The jewel in the crown is the family's Clos Ste-Hune vineyard, a small vineyard just outside Hunawihr. Family-owned for over 200 years, it is widely regarded as one of the best expressions of Alsace Riesling. Trimbach has launched their first-ever terroir named wine with the 2009 Riesling Grand Cru Geisberg, 2.6 ha plot on the Geisberg have always been part of the famous Cuvée Frédéric Emile. A second Grand Cru may be in the pipeline as, in 2012 the Trimbach family purchased a plot in the Kientzheim Grand Cru Schlossberg.

Grape variety
Pinot Gris

Pinot Gris is a white wine grape variety of the species Vitis vinifera. Thought to be a mutant clone of the pinot Noir variety, it normally has a greyish-blue fruit, accounting for its name but the grapes can have a brownish pink to black and even white appearance. The word pinot could have been given to it because the grapes grow in small pine cone-shaped clusters. The wines produced from this grape also vary in colour from a deep golden yellow to copper and even a light shade of pink, and it is one of the more popular grapes for skin-contact wine.

Pinot Gris is grown around the globe with the "spicy" full-bodied Alsatian and lighter-bodied, more acidic Italian styles being most widely recognised. The Alsatian style, often duplicated in New World wine regions such as Marlborough, Tasmania, South Australia, Washington, and Oregon, tend to have moderate to low acidity, higher alcohol levels and an almost "oily" texture that contributes to the full-bodied nature of the wine. The flavours can range from ripe tropical fruit notes of melon and mango to some botrytis-influenced flavours. In Italy, Pinot grigio grapes are often harvested early to retain the refreshing acidity and minimize some of the overt-fruitiness of the variety, creating a more neutral flavour profile. This style is often imitated in other Old World wine regions, such as Germany where the grape is known as Ruländer.

Alternative Names: Pinot Grigio, Rulander, Grauburgunder, Grauer Burgunder, Grauer Riesling, Grauklevner, Malvoisie, Fromenteau Gris, Pinot Beurot, Auvernat Gris, Auxerrois Gris, Tokay d'Alsace (prior to 2007), Szurkebarat, Sivi Pinot

About Alsace

Alsace, in the far north-eastern corner of France, stands out from other French wine regions thanks to its strong Franco-Germanic influences. These are the results of the region having switched back and forth between German and French sovereignty in recent centuries – and are evident not only in Alsatian architecture and culture, but also in the wines.

Alsace's wines are produced under three key appellations: Alsace and Alsace Grand Cru for still white wines (both sweet and dry), and Crémant d'Alsace for sparkling. Almost all wine produced in this region fits into one of these three designations. The Alsace Grand Cru wines are produced from one of 51 favoured vineyards distributed along the length of the region.

Alsace is the only French wine region to grow significant quantities of Riesling and Gewurztraminer. Both of these grape varieties are more commonly associated with German wines, and serve as a reminder of Alsace's history. Pinot Gris, a variety typically marginalised in other French regions as a blending component, is another of the region's noble varieties. It was known as "Tokay" until 1993 (the Hungarian wine being the byword for quality) then Tokay-Pinot Gris until 2007 when EU regulations phased out the reference completely.

Alsace Grand Cru wines are only allowed - with one exception - to be made from these three varieties plus Muscat. Three variants are grown of the latter: Muscat Blanc à Petits Grains, Muscat Rose à Petits Grains, and Muscat Ottonel. Sylvaner is another traditional Alsace grape variety which provides the exception; wine made from this variety only qualifies for Grand Cru status if grown at one particular vineyard: Zotzenberg.

Chasselas, Pinot Blanc and Auxerrois are also grown although these three tend to be used not in single-variety wines but in blends (see Edelzwicker). Confusingly, an Alsace wine labelled as Pinot Blanc may also be a multi-variety blend, also containing Auxerrois, Pinot Gris and Pinot Noir fermented without the skins.

White varietal wines make up 90 percent of production here, from the varieties stated above. Key variations in wine styles are marked by their residual sugar levels, which cover the entire sweetness spectrum from bone dry to lusciously sweet. In 1983, the official terms Vendanges Tardives and Selection de Grains Nobles (see French Wine Label Information) were introduced to define and categorise sweet Alsace wines. They remained unique to the region for some time, but are now used in other French appellations such as Jurancon and Côteaux du Layon.

Although significantly outnumbered by white wines, red wines are also made here, mostly from Pinot Noir. Alsace Pinot Noirs are typically lighter-bodied and more rustic than those produced in the variety's homeland Burgundy, 225km (140 miles) to the southwest. That said, climate change and warmer summers are leading the region's winemakers to produce noticeably more powerful styles of Pinot Noir.

The Alsace region lies between the Vosges mountains and the French border with Germany, marked by the Rhine river. A long, thin region, it measures 185 kilometres (115 miles) north to south and just 40km (25 miles) from east to west. The key viticultural areas here are all located on the lower hillsides of the Vosges, on slopes with east and south-easterly aspects.

The Vosges play a vital role in defining the region's terroir; they not only provide protection from the prevailing westerly winds, but also cast a rain shadow over the area, contributing to the low rainfall of its continental climate. They are at their most dense in the southern half of Alsace, where the peaks reach roughly 1400 meters ( 4600ft). The glacial activity which created the mountains has also significantly impacted the region's topography and soils. These vary from sandstone, granite and volcanic rock types in the foothills, to clay-rich limestone and marlstone on the alluvial plains below.

Regular price $96.00

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