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| Drinking Windows and Values |
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| Community Tasting Notes (average 91.7 pts. and median of 93 pts. in 9 notes) - hiding notes with no text | | | Tasted by Bandreas on 8/12/2022: Deep golden color; bordering on light amber. On the nose kerosene and fyrne which becomes more evanescent with exposure to air.
On the palate slightly bitter and more fyrn. After a while those impressions subside. The wine, never more than middle weight is svelte and has good balance.
Has surpassed its apogee quite a few years ago but has kept surprisingly well in view of the not overly great year.
Mt wife liked it more than I did. tis was my last bottle of 6 originally bought. All the others wer drunk in the eighties and early nineties. (573 views) | | | Tasted by Peech on 3/30/2022 & rated 93 points: very smooth and elegant, not in-your-face or powerful at all. Still lively some 1½ hours after decanting, with lemon citrus and some flint. Great acidity balance with some maturity to tone things down. (599 views) | | | Tasted by Kemo Sabe on 1/28/2018 & rated 93 points: Muted nose of petrol, flowers, yellow fruits, apricots and tropical flavors. Still a good amount of energy and great balance. Plenty of acidity left. Has a ways to go. (1735 views) | | | Tasted by tinybubbles on 1/24/2018 & rated 89 points: Beginning to oxidize. Much better on nose and palate for the first 30 mins versus thereafter. Rich honeyed complexion. Drink soon. 89- (1650 views) | | | Tasted by Jeremy Holmes on 4/3/2016: Wonderful aged Riesling, no petrol, no oxidation just pure fruit with proper development traits. You get some rockmelon and mango and a squeeze of lime. The palate is shapely with a bit of custard lactic action. It has fruit sweetness but finishes with pungent minerality and has remarkable persistence. (2735 views) | | | Tasted by xwine on 4/27/2014: I was ready for the worst, but hoping for the best. Fortunately, this was on the "best" end of the scale. An ethereal and elusive nose of light spice and an indescribable light tropical fruit. This showed delicacy, yet great depth, and an ever changing range of light yet intense flavors. This was not a "wow" wine, but impressed with its drive and subtle complexity. The fruit is clearly waning, leaving the finish a bit high in acid, but overall this was a wonderful drinking experience. A fascinating look at a 33-year old dry riesling. (3144 views) | | | Tasted by dcwino on 11/7/2012 & rated 93 points: Pre WWS 2012 GJE dinner at Devero Ristorante - 85 La Las, 09 DRC VR and etc (Devero hotel - outskirts of Milan): Rather delicate despite apple tart like slightly over matured nose. Fully matured complex nose displaying caramel, a hint of petrol, apricot, smoke and ginger. Medium body wine that is drinking beautifully. Another wine with the great provenance speaking through. (4499 views) | | | Tasted by Eric on 10/13/2012 & rated 89 points: Canlis celebration to welcome Dan Polivy (Seattle, WA): We took a stab at this off the wine list. Intriguing even if not utterly compelling. Diesel and honey tones on the nose. Funky wet stone on the palate. As I hoped, this started a little flat but with chill and some air the acid came into line. Of course very dry in the Trimbach style and yet with the regal aspect of a Clos St. Hune. At this age, this one was just a bit tired. (4980 views) | | | Tasted by CamWheeler on 7/20/2006 & rated 93 points: Sydney Offline: Birthyear Wines: A shimmering light gold colour. My first sniff straight out of the bottle was not promising - very sulphurous, but given some air time, I felt that it really started to open up with wax, straw, petrol and citrus emerging. The palate was where the class and finesse of this wine really shone through though - super balance, style, structure and length! Might be one of the few '81s that will stick around for my 30th birthday (5317 views) |
| Trimbach Producer website | producer profile on thewinedoctor.com.
U.S. Importer for stat sheets, etc.Riesling Varietal character (Appellation America) | A short history of Riesling (Uncork) | Riesling (wikipedia)Clos Ste. HuneA note on the Terroir by James E. Wilson (1998, University of California Press, Berkeley). You may want to consult pp 94-100 for color figures making the geology easier to comprehend. A copy of this seminal book should be part of every serious wine amateur's library!
...The Upper and Middle Triassic strata contain dolomites [magnesium-calcium phosphates] interbedded anhydrite [anhydrous calcium sulfate] and gypsiferous clays [derived from calcium sulfate]. [comment -- soils derived from these minerals would be expected to have an acidic reaction]; the hard dolomites would help form the low hills of this terrain; They also contribute to the pebbly texture of the soil. The Lower Triassic is made up of sandstones and shales, with conglomerates and overall stratigraphic sequences, few classic caprock and slope landforms develop; rather the typical features are low, rounded hills. In addition to the alluvial fans, there are some Quaternary sheet washes of pebbles and sands from the Vosges mixed with the calcareous sandy/clay soils. ....the Ribeauville Fault Bundle opens up southward at St.-Hippolyte and continues [southward] to the Fecht fan delta at Colmar. The area contains a large numbe--more than a third--of the Grands Crus of Alsace. The detail of the geologic map [..... brings] out the patchwork nature of the faulting.
The cross-section of the sub-Vosgian Hills illustrates how the step faulting lowers successvely younger strata into place toward the Rhine fault. The fault blocks are between 100 and 150 acres (40-60 ha) in size. Coming through [like a] vivid patchwork, the dominant [.....] Triassic, [...] Jurassic, and [ ...] Oligocene [demonstrate] the sequence of the step-faulting.
Beginning with the tiny Kanzlerberg terroir at Bergheim, six Grands Crus are located in the [...] Triassic zone: Osterberg, Kirchberg, Geisberg, Rosacker, and Schoenenbourg, Clos-Ste.-Hune, andthough not a Grand Cru, is also on Triassic soils. [note--while Trimbach's Clos Ste.-Hune is not an AOC Alsace Grand Cru, there is little doubt that this wine could be so labelled if the Trinbachs chose to participate in the Grand Cru scheme.]jht
A write-up on this vineyard by Rare Wine Co's Manny Berk--ed. by jht
The Trimbach family’s tiny 3-acre Clos Ste. Hune .......... The Clos lies within the Rosacker grand cru. Yet, the Trimbachs label [the wines{ simply as Clos Ste. Hune, just as they have since 1919. They refer to neither Rosacker nor grand cru [..].
A Unique Terroir. Arguably the most perfect place in France to grow Riesling, Clos Ste. Hune stands apart from Alsace’s other top Riesling vineyards, which rely on steep slopes and heat-retaining granite or schist soil to bring their fruit to full ripeness. In contrast, Clos Ste. Hune’s 40-year-old vines are planted in cool, calcareous- clay soil with a gentle incline and a high percentage of limestone.
So, while other famous Alsace Rieslings can sometimes border on heaviness, Clos Ste. Hune balances its enveloping richness with an intense minerality, remarkable finesse and great structure. Thus, like a Raveneau grand cru Chablis, the more it ages, the more profound Clos Ste. Hune becomes.
One Master. Clos Ste. Hune has for more than two centuries [been made by] one of France’s greatest winemaking families. Staunch traditionalists, the Trimbachs reject their neighbors’ recent efforts to make sweeter, lusher wines. They continue to make Clos Ste. Hune as they did in the past: a cool, slow fermentation, a quick racking to remove the wine from the lees, no malolactic fermentation and a short period of aging in neutral wood foudre before bottling early to retain the fruit. The wine is then aged for an incredible five years in bottle before being released.
In [extremely exceptional] years, tiny amounts of Vendange Tardive are made, but they are different from other VT’s. They result not from botrytis but passerillage—dehydration caused by the sap returning to the vine's root system. They boast immense concentration and complexity, but only off-dry levels of residual sugar, as Trimbach vinifies them to be as dry as possible. Like other Clos Ste. Hunes, the VT’s are capable of immortality.
Unrivalled Consistency. But what makes Clos Ste. Hune most extraordinary is its consistency, having established a record of greatness over the last 86 years that is unequaled in Alsace. As Tom Stevenson writes in The Wines of Alsace, "I cannot think of any Alsace Riesling that could match its performance year-in, year-out over a span of, say, 40 vintages. It is the consistency of performance that establishes the greatness of a growth."
Even in average years like 1986, Clos Ste. Hune is stunningly aromatic, complex and capable of long development. Such a track record shows the advantage of this vineyard as a Trimbach monopole..... With only 500 to 600 cases made, and demand far exceeding supply, even current vintages of Clos Ste. Hune can be excruciatingly difficult to find. As for older vintages, these can be impossible [to find].
Exact position of Rosacker on weinlagen.info
France Vins de France (Office National Interprofessionnel des Vins ) | Pages Vins, Directory of French Winegrowers | French Wine (Wikipedia)
Wine Scholar Guild vintage ratings
2018 vintage: "marked by a wet spring, a superb summer and a good harvest"
2019 vintage reports
2021: "From a general standpoint, whether for white, rosé or red wines, 2021 is a year marked by quality in the Rhône Valley Vineyards. Structured, elegant, fresh and fruity will be the main keywords for this new vintage."
2022 harvest: idealwine.info | wine-searcher.comAlsace Vins d'Alsace (Conseil Interprofessionnel des Vins d'Alsace)
Please see the AlsaceEntryGuide for more information how the wines of Alsace are entered and organized in CellarTracker.
Interactive Map on weinlagen.infoAlsace On weinlagen-info |
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