2000 Grasberg

"If your vines have deep roots, then you probably had a great vintage in 2000, with a lot of noble rot," said Jean-Michel Deiss, leaving little doubt about the attributes of his own vines. "If not, then you probably got a lot of gray rot. There was certainly a big panic at the beginning of the harvest, when gray rot was spreading quickly." Deiss now offers essentially three categories of wines: varietally labelled fruit wines, under which heading he includes his communal bottlings; classic late-harvest wines; and vins du terroir field blends of varieties designated by their site, including his grand crus and a number of additional vineyards that he refers to as his premier crus. It is clear that he regards his vins du terroir which reject Alsace emphasis on variety over site, as the top of the quality pyramid: he shows these wines after the late-harvest bottlings even though they typically carry less residual sugar. The reason they can be tasted after the late-harvest examples, he says, is that they are simply more complex and more complete. Tasting these pure expressions of terroir without having the crutch of the variety to lean on was certainly one of the most fascinating experiences of my tour of Alsace.