Top 100 Wines of Alsace in 2019
Jack Suckling enjoys a glass of Albert Mann Pinot Noir Grand H at the Top 100 Alsace Wines 2019 award ceremony at Lalique.
“To have a serious reputation in the region, you now need to make a serious pinot noir,” remarked one winemaker we met this year during our annual JamesSuckling.com wine tasting in Alsace. So, we took his comment to heart and included no fewer than 21 pinot noirs in our list of the Top 100 Wines of Alsace in 2019.
Most of the wines are from the 2017 vintage, a hot and dry year that enabled many to make rich and balanced pinot noirs. However, the glorious grape is good just about every year now thanks to the savoir faire of the best vine-growers in Alsace and the average increase of temperatures during the growing season.
That isn’t to say we didn’t appreciate all the excellent whites we reviewed from the more than 500 samples submitted for our July tasting — sponsored by the celebrated crystal maker Lalique, where we tasted in the beautiful cellars of their two-star Michelin restaurant of Villa René Lalique in Wingen.
Our number one wine in our top 100 was Domaine Weinbach Riesling Alsace Grand Cru Schlossberg Cuvée Ste. Catherine 2017. Its purity of fruit stood out like a brilliant star in a clear summer’s night. The intense fruit flavors, density, intensity and freshness are breathtaking. Moreover, the wine’s dryness and focus gives it imposing presence and structure.
Our no. 1 wine also highlights how the 2017 vintage, in most cases, turned out to be a great year in Alsace for all grape types, despite the intense heat and drought during the summer. Seven of our top 10 wines were from 2017, and we are keen to tell the world how wonderful the vintage was for Alsace. The vintage may have been slightly low in quantity, but the wines show the kind of intensity, depth and finesse that we honestly didn’t expect!
The top three wines in our list of Top 100 Wines of Alsace 2019.
We hope that you can see from our list that we don’t favor any of the key varieties over any other, as they all feature prominently, whether riesling, gewürztraminer, pinot gris or pinot noir. That said, pinot noir aside, we were particularly partial to gewürztraminer in 2017; the best examples of the vintage combine profound complexity with an unwonted sense of agility for the grape.
In terms of styles we must admit that we do have a preference for dry wines, or at least wines that have a dry balance to the fruit, acid, phenolics and extract. We believe that too many wines are overly sweet, despite no such indication on their labels, and this makes for confusing drinking for everyone from the wine trade to consumers.
Niedermorschwihr is a charming town on the Alsace wine route, surrounded by vineyards.
We didn’t include many rarities in our Top 100 list such as Vendanges Tardives or Sélection de Grains Nobles, as most of the wines were too small in production (less than 300 cases) to be included. However, we remain in awe of many of these handmade bottles. Please check out our full report at: www.jamessuckling.com/wine-tasting-reports/alsace-2019.
In addition, for the most part this Top 100 list only comprises wines that are currently on the market or that will be in the near future. My editorial assistant spent a number of days calling wineries and checking production figures and release dates. We hope the information is accurate and useful. The list is based on scores and something we call the “wow factor” – wines that impress us with their overall quality and pedigree.
We applaud all the producers in our Top 100 list for making fantastic wines. And we are excited that so many are also dedicated to organic and biodynamic farming methods, as we strongly support these forms of viticulture in view of the increasing deterioration of our environment.
The best of Alsace are real wines, from real vineyards, from real people.
– James Suckling, CEO & editor, and Jack Suckling, contributing editor