Alsace 2021s and 2020s – A Late Arrival in the Pinot Noir Pantheon

BY ANNE KREBIEHL MW | APRIL 25, 2023

For years and years, Alsace was white wine country. Until recently, its Pinot Noirs were hardly taken seriously, understandably so. A closer look reveals that Pinot Noir has a long and ingrained history in the region. It had a large presence in former centuries, steadily losing ground in the 20th, but it never disappeared. Until recently, neither climate nor appellation rules allowed the wines to shine. The planting figures tell their own story: 712ha in 1982, 1,016ha in 1992, 1,540ha in 2011 and 1,745ha in 2021. Currently, a good proportion of Alsace Pinot Noir is destined for Crémant d’Alsace Rosé, which by law has to be made from 100% Pinot Noir. Of today’s 1,745 hectares, a good 38% are used for that purpose, as CIVA reports. Some of it is still vinified in large foudres in an easy-drinking, fruit-driven style, but increasingly the wines are made with real ambition. It took Alsace a while to emerge in this global arena, but some of the wines are world-class Pinot Noirs of spellbinding beauty.

A 15th-century tapestry by an unknown artist at the Unterlinden Museum, Colmar.

An Easy-Drinking, 20th-Century Past

The Pinot Noir that was bottled in the past was of a different nature – even though fine wines were made in great vintages. Marc Beyer of Domaine Léon Beyer, renowned for resolutely dry wines throughout the 20th century, has made Pinot Noir since the end of the Second World War. Beyer still has Pinot Noir from the top 1959 vintage in his cellar. He sheds some light on the style made in the 1960s and 1970s: “Pinot Noir has always represented 20% of our production. Even in the 1960s, we produced quite a refreshing, young style, fruity, with short maceration and no barrique. It was drunk chilled and was very popular in Alsace-style brasseries we supplied in Paris.” Here is a mid-20th-century assessment by Fritz Siegfried Solomon Hallgarten (1902-1989), a German refugee from the Rheingau who became a wine importer and author in England, from his 1957 book Alsace and Its Wine Gardens. This mid-20th-century assessment shows the strides that have been made since:

“I will also mention in passing the red wine from the Pinot Noir which in colour is more rosé than red and should be drunk as a rosé wine slightly iced. I hope that my suggestion will not raise an outcry – but this exception is necessary for Alsatian red wines. I tried to drink it in the conservative way chambré – it is worth trying when in Alsace – to know how it tasted like this, but it is not worth importing and paying high duty when the finer French red wines are available at much more advantageous prices.”

Barred from Success

The legal framework of Alsace was a real hindrance to the progress of Pinot Noir. When Alsace grand crus were first delimited between 1975-1983 (with further site additions between 1985 and 2007) there was just one cahier des charges for the appellation Alsace grand cru. This meant that yields, regulations and permitted varieties were the same for all 51 grand crus – with some exceptions for, say, Sylvaner on the Zotzenberg – but Pinot Noir was not a permitted variety. It was thus not necessarily planted in the best sites, with notable outliers. At the time, this made sense. In the 1970s and 1980s, it was much harder to ripen red grapes than it is now. The law changed fundamentally in 2011 when each grand cru was allowed its own cahier des charges, finally presenting the possibility of getting Pinot Noir approved as a permitted variety in certain grand cru sites. Applications went in for three grand crus: Vorbourg in Rouffach, Kirchberg de Barr in Barr and Hengst in Wettolsheim. Pinot Noir was allowed at long last for the 2022 vintage for the latter two – sadly, not for Vorbourg. The reason is simple: the powers, namely the INAO (Institut National de l'Origine et de la Qualité), want to assess wines made from these sites over several vintages from a number of producers. This was possible for Hengst and Kirchberg de Barr, where 12 and 7 estates, respectively, are making site-designated Pinot Noirs. In the case of Vorbourg, only one estate has made single-site Pinot Noir for many years, namely Domaine du Clos Saint Landelin, run by the Muré family – real Pinot Noir pioneers.