Domaine Marcel Deiss 'Schoenenbourg' Grand Cru 2010
(Alsace, France) 750mL

About the Producer:

The SCHOENENBOURG hill, famous since the Middle Ages, is the brightest gem of all the RIQUEWIHR vineyards. This site has been the birthplace of all the great wines of this town and is the reason for Riquewihr’s almost universal renown.

It has a very specific topography, facing south, located at a valley entrance with a steep slope and his geology formed of Keuper marl which is a rough mixture of indescent and gypsum marls covered by laryers of Vosgian sandstone. The combination of a light, airy, friable topsoil on a clay based, fertile substratum with good water retention properties, accounts for the fact that the personality of the Schoenenbourg wines is dominated more by their native soil than by their variety.

Because of the proximity to the Vosgian Fault, the micro-climate of Schoenenbourg is quite cold, late, suited to a slow, difficult maturing of grapes and the frequent development of Noble Rot.

About the Wine: 

However, Schoenenbourg produces wines which age well with outstanding body and richness, and characteristics not common for this type of wine: a nose with a hint of pepper or even a smoky aroma similar to a Tokay, a light acidity hidden by the fullness of its body, and a mineral nature not evident when young but developing fossil traces in time.

Finally, it can assimilate high potentials of residual sugars, because there is almost always Noble Rot. The Schoenenbourg wines are among the Very Great Wines of Alsatian Soils.

Tasted in the dark:

•  Mental Landscape: Dark, horny wine (burnt nail of the horse being shoed). Opens to an open, lighter landscape, marked by water, wet chalk, wet plaster, the mud of a northern beach under a leaded sky. The touch of nose is curious, pointed, iodized, lemon zests circulate, but cold, distant, ending on noble bitterness .
•  Mouthfeel: the wine begins with seduction, but a slightly intellectual seduction, like first in class or Nobel Prize winner. You say: yes, there you go, OK. Then a violent, acidic tidal wave is triggered, salivating at the back of the mouth, gently drying out the mandible, digging out a violent, broad and definitive vinosity. One remains pantois in front of this tawny, its deadly attack, its bite.
• The port or the energy: the greatest wine of the cellar, the most intimidating too: there is a unique depth, a telluric "cold", an infinite psalmody. I'm too small...