Topic: TN: Weinbach women (no song)
Author: Thor Iverson (Boston, MA)
Date: Fri Mar 23 04:34:34 2001
The always engaging, if occasionally shy, Laurence Faller was in Boston to promote her 1999 vintage. And so, I got to taste most of these wines at a press/trade event, and the rest at a dinner at one of Boston''s "hot new" restaurants -- really an old restaurant in a "hot new" location.

Warning: some intemperate rants ahead.

The day started with Laurence lacking clothes. No, no, everyone put it back...what I meant to say was that some of her luggage didn''t arrive. The bag with the illegal foie gras? Of course it arrived, and thank goodness! The bag with the clothes? Nope. So she borrowed some from a friend (with whom she was staying), and headed out to the giant Martignetti facility in the very outlying Norwood area.

Why anyone would hold a tasting way out there, I can''t imagine. Perhaps it was convenient for the Martignetti people; as the ever-growing conglomerate of importers that they are, perhaps they''ve decided that everyone should have to come to them. (It is a nice facility.) Perhaps it was bad planning. (More on this later.) But if there was one sure way to guarantee low attendance, this was it. I was the only press person there, and there were damn few retailers. A shame, really.

The wines were lined up on separate tables, with the aforementioned foie gras, smoked salmon, and various cheeses (with Laurence''s food and wine pairing suggestions) arrayed on another table. Going back to some of the wines with the food was a very eye-opening experience for some, and I think something that should happen more often. The usual trays of slightly limp veggies and fruit, along with some generic packaged American "cheese products" and stale crackers, do nothing for wine.

Anyway, enough blabber for now. On to the . The Weinbach 1999 Pinot ''Reserve'' was a little odd, and didn''t really want to come out and play. Peaches and ripe apricots, some salty minerals and high acidity, but really somewhat turned in on itself. But the lovely Weinbach 1999 Muscat ''Reserve'' made up for it, very floral with white pepper notes, delicate pear flavors, and a long and lovely finish.

The 1999 vintage in Alsace was difficult, no matter what anyone tells you. It was hot and dry, then it started to rain -- heavily -- at the beginning of the regular harvest. (For buyers, this means that many négociant wines will be mercilessly thin and diluted in 1999, unless special steps were taken.) However, most grower-producers were able to ride out the rain, and in fact harvest very late in the year. November harvests were not uncommon. Still, across the board, wines from multiple regions, vineyards, and producers have lacked a certain something. It''s not just in comparison to the wonderful 1996-97-98 trio, though with 2000 also looking spectacular the vintage will be hard to sell to vintage-over-conscious Americans. But it''s as if acid/sugar balances were somehow arrested during the cold and wet spell, and never quite recovered. Nowhere does this show quite so strongly as in rieslings.

The Weinbach 1999 Riesling Schlossberg (Grand Cru) is wet (very wet) iron and completely transparent to the soil. Elegant, if a bit acrid, but there''s already a distinct lack of fruit. This tastes Bas-Rhin, not Schlossberg, and should probably be consumed soon. The normal Weinbach 1999 Riesling ''Cuvée Ste. Catherine'' is slightly weightier, with a distinct hickory and Sprite note (lemon-lime for non-Sprite drinkers). Some nice almondy notes on the medium-long finish. But the Weinbach 1999 Riesling Schlossberg ''Cuvée Ste. Catherine'' (Grand Cru) is the class of the bunch, with all the mineral intensity one expects from this producer and vineyard. Floral at first, and delivers a fairly intense alcoholic impression on the attack, which softens under a very slight sweetness on the midpalate. The finish is as dry as iron. Leave it alone for a while. Unfortunately, the Weinbach 1999 Riesling Schlossberg ''Cuvée Ste. Catherine'' ''l''Inédit'' (Grand Cru) is not up to its usual level, nor up to the regular Schlossberg. This was so surprising I suspect an off-bottle (these were all shipped from Weinbach, though well in advance, and not from the Vineyard Brands or Carolina warehouses). Wet steel and apple, uninteresting at first but then morphing into a chilling fall rain. Some decaying leaves add a bit of palate interest to this clearly off-dry riesling, but the finish is a bit thin. I''d give it the benefit of the doubt, but not at the rather lofty price.

We only tasted two non-late-harvest pinot gris. The Weinbach 1999 Pinot Gris Altenbourg ''Cuvée Laurence'' blows its considerable load early in the game, which is not out of the ordinary from the blazing sun of the Altenbourg vineyard. Off-dry, with smoked banana and apple flavors, an intense core of fruit with a somewhat disappointingly short finish. But pretty tasty now. Promising more of a future, the Weinbach 1999 Pinot Gris ''Cuvée Ste. Catherine'' is very light, with spiced apple and pear. This time a refreshing spring rain carries the flavors, and as such this is soft and fruity and as sprightly as the prototypical young maiden in April, and thought the sugar cane flavors (this is off-dry) match the rhyme that goes with those little girls, I doubt anyone would expect the acidic minerality that whallops you on the finish. Wait, of course they would...if they were married. Still, not Weinbach''s best "l''Inédit."

Some of the Fallers'' most striking efforts are with gewurztraminer, and this is in fact where I think Laurence works her best voodoo. She takes a grape that is all too often overpowering, oily, acid-deficient, and what''s more sources it from vineyard that want to supply it with that knockout punch that critics love, but that makes the wine virtually undrinkable in any normal setting, and manages to find an elegance and a balance that is simply remarkable. No, these are not light wines by any means, but they do best exhibit the more restrained path on which Laurence is taking the entire domaine.

The Weinbach 1999 Gewurztraminer ''Cuvée Laurence'' is, like most of these, off-dry. But what a wave of flavors! Roasted & smoked cashew, almond, and peanut, lychee, red apple, peach, and a wonderful roasted corn note on the finish, all supported with a striking minerality and excellent acid balance. Terrific stuff. On the other hand, the Weinbach 1999 Gewurztraminer Furstentum ''Cuvée Laurence'' (Grand Cru) was just bizarre, and I think had not entirely recovered from bottling yet. Shyly poking their heads out were some sweet pear, steel, and chalk characters, but the salty finish left this difficult to judge. Judgement witheld until I taste another bottle (which I would do later that evening). Thankfully, the first of two stickies quickly wiped all memory of the odd Furstentum. The Weinbach 1998 Gewurztraminer Altenbourg ''Vendanges Tardives'' (90° residual sugar, 294° at harvest) is mindblowingly massive, with spiced peach, baked apple, corn, and cashew flavors. Yet it retains that exquisite poise by having so much extract that the sweetness seems relatively restrained, and lifting everything with surprisingly bright acidity. Wonderful now, but will reward serious aging.

And finally, a Weinbach 1998 Pinot Gris Altenbourg ''Seléction des Grains Nobles'' (147° residual sugar, 323° at harvest) actually needs the time. Pretty strong botrytis flavors, apple, pear, and an unmistakable poire william aroma lead to a rich, smooth recapitulation of these flavors on the palate. Hugely sweet, with a good mineral core and an extremely long finish.

So, time for the first of the rants, this one mild. Why are these wines so expensive? Yes, I know they''re expensive to make, coming from low yields and mostly Weinbach-owned vineyard. Yes, I think they should be at the top tier of prices with Alsace''s other top producers. But still, these wines are very expensive, and not just in the Boston market. It''s lucky that many of them are produced in pretty small quantities, because at these prices they''re not going to fly off the shelves.

And now, another rant, this one more extreme. I don''t know how well Vineyard Brands does with these wines in other markets, but I admit to being very disappointed with their efforts here. I got into an argument with the VB representative at one point; I was telling Laurence why the Trimbachs have such a huge market position in New England (they really do, so much so that sometimes we get more of the super-limited bottlings than the New York market), and the rep came over and claimed that it was essentially Seagram propaganda. When informed that this info came from the Trimbachs, he seemed to have no response, and just wandered off.

Yet I barely heard about the press tasting at all, except in a brief and confusing email three days in advance. I''m not sure the other local writers heard about it at all. Carolina (the wholesaler) seemed to do better with retailers, but that''s to be expected. And given the remote location, and some of what happened later on at the dinner, I''m forced to conclude that Vineyard Brands is simply not representing Weinbach very well in what could, I think be a lucrative market for them. No, Laurence or Catherine will never match Jean Trimbach''s 2-3 visits to the market per year, but given the small lots of each wine I don''t think it''s necessary for her to do so. And I intend to tell Laurence this at the next opportunity.

So from there, it was on to dinner. Laurence finally got the rest of her luggage, and changed into something...well, this is a tasting note, not a Penthouse letter. This was a public event, and we were joined by two non-geek friends and Mike & Carla Lawton, who thought the evening was worthwhile simply because Laurence warned them against a trip to Alsace on their intended dates, which happened to coincide with VinExpo!

Salamander, run by much-lauded chef Stan Frankenthaler, is yet another take on fusion, very much attempting to merge "hot" cooking (grilling, for instance) with the more adventurous world of spices, especially Asian. I was never particularly impressed with the old location in Cambridge, and while this new location is definitely better-sited, the food is just as poorly-conceived and executed. Worse, the decor and service have devolved. The staff seemed actively hostile towards our presence, and managed to create a lot of unnecessary confusing all night. And to cap it all off, there was clearly a shortage of almost every wine; a mistake on the part of either the wholesaler or the importer, possibly both.

The food and wine didn''t go all that well together, though they could have with some more attention to detail. Full-bodied Alsace wines can certainly take some spice, though I think it has now been demonstrated that they can''t take wasabi-spiced daikon radish. Anyway, we had the opportunity to revisit a few wines from earlier. Here, for comparison, are the evening notes:

Weinbach 1999 Riesling Schlossberg (Grand Cru) showed even less generously than it did in the earlier tasting. Petrol and minerals, green apple, lime rind, and generally not the most pleasant apéritif (for that''s what it became, as they poured long before the first course, and had no more left for the actual food). But the Weinbach 1999 Riesling Schlossberg ''Cuvée Ste. Catherine'' (Grand Cru) continued to show well, with big pear, apricot, nectarine, and radish flavors coming out full and rich against the food. However, there was an oddly fuzzy character to the finish, like lint coating the tongue. Still, there''s much potential here.

The Weinbach 1999 Pinot Gris ''Cuvée Ste. Catherine'' was the best foil for the food, with the flavor of sweet Asian pear and a huge minerality, while the Weinbach 1999 Gewurztraminer Furstentum ''Cuvée Laurence'' (Grand Cru) shed its strangeness and showed true Furstentum character, cashew and almond, drying, almost bitter lychee (the wine, though, is off-dry) and spicy cream, with excellent balance and much promise for the future. And the Weinbach 1998 Gewurztraminer Altenbourg ''Vendanges Tardives'' still does not suck. Excellent balance between sweetness and intensity, with spicy cashew, peach, and pear flavors and a long finish, buttressed by great acidity.

All in all, a good bunch of wines, with the ''98s obviously outclassing the ''99s. Still, at better prices (and certainly from the domaine, where prices are ridiculously low), these would be terrific wines to have for short-term drinking with food, while waiting for the previous three vintages to come around.