As an interesting pendant to my recent post about Alsace, I’ve opened this bottle from Julien Meyer: the 2001 Sylvaner Zellberg.
Patrick Meyer (who runs this estate named after his father Julien) is one of the more interesting vintners on Alsace. A fervent follower of biodynamics, he now also makes wines with minimal added SO2, or none at all. And he also allows some oxidation into some of his wines: the 2009 Pinot Gris N.O. is aged in barrels that are left unfilled, resulting in a vaguely amontillado-like brew of interesting dimension, but surely challenging if you’re used to the off-dry powerful superfruity standard Pinot Gris from Alsace.
This is a great bottle of juice.
I’ve long followed Meyer’s wines and they lately have the tendency to be rather erratic. Some bottles of the Muscat Petite Fleur, 2010 Riesling, or Crémant d’Alsace have definitely veered towards spoilage: oxidation or dirt. Not too pleasant. Other bottles of the same wines are fine. When I spoke to him in December Patrick Meyer was disarmingly honest: “I make quite some bad wine. It doesn’t matter. Everybody does. It’s about being true to yourself. And it’s about the taste of your wine when you do are successful”. He’s right in the sense that his good wines, like the 2009 Grittermatte Riesling or 2008 Muenchberg Riesling, have a stunning mineral depth that is allowed to shine unencumbered by sulphury reduction.
The peachy colour is like an aged Pinot Gris, too.
This 2001 is a special wine in several aspects. It comes from before Meyer’s biodynamic and no-SO2 period (he converted to BD in 2004). It is made with Alsace’s most modest, unloved grape: Sylvaner. Sylvaner is meant to be drunk in a year or two, and this bottle cost me 6€. But extraordinary Sylvaner it is. Picked late with a portion of botrytised grapes, it reaches for ripeness and aromatic breadth that are usually beyond the variety’s ambition. It is Sylvaner that becomes a bit like Pinot Gris, with its abundance of sweet, spicy notes. But there is also Sylvaner’s steely acidic backbone, lending the wine real minerality, fantastic length, and helping it age: in fact this bottle at age 11 was very far from exhausted. The intensity was incredible, as was the balance: pack in so much botrytised richness and then so much fresh acids, a rarely seen feast of winemaking. Do you believe in great wine? Here’s one.
Curiously, this rich, powerful wine is recommended as “vin de 10 heures”, i.e. morning aperitif.
Disclosure
Source of wine: own purchase.
Was it far FROM exhausted, you mean?
A great article, anyway, also some refreshingly simple & honest viewpoint from the producer.
My impression was of a very fresh wine. Although there is a sharp contrast between the green apple acidity and the rich apricotty botrytis fruit, somehow it works. In a way this wine reminded me of old-style Mosel Riesling from the 1970s and 1980s, when the green acidity was so high acting as a preservative that the wines are almost immortal.
I love the last advice on the label “(…) vin de 10 heures…”. It means that this sylvaner could act as a substitue to the morning cup of coffee or tea. I haven’t try so far to drink a half botritized beverage at my work place during my morning break…
jfrdz
Exactly. It intrigued me too. The wine does have sufficient acidity for an early aperitif, but the botrytis bit is indeed puzzling. A reader on my Polish blog sent a link saying that the classic “vin de 10 heures” was considered Pouilly-sur-Loire, i.e. Chasselas. This Sylvaner does have a bit of Chasselas style, if you substract the botrytis.