A beautifully-coloured, aromatic field blend, exuding the humid, musky ambiance of the glasshouse garden. Concentrated with oily citrus pith on the palate and textured from time with the skins.
Everything here hangs in a seductive sort of balance and is exactly as you’d hope from from the long list of grapes combined, all grown together in a cluster of small parcels. Mainly Gewürztraminer; intensely floral but tempered and steadied by a cocktail of Pinot Gris, Riesling, Auxerrois, Sylvaner and Chasselas.
Its base tone of amber is given a striking pink blush with a little Pinot Noir. There is so much to unpack – fresh roses, lime leaves, tangerine, basil and lily. There is a gummy, toothsome quality to the fruits that tails into salty minerals and dried spice in its impressively long finish. A delight for the senses!
The south-east-facing vineyards on the sloped foothills of the Vosges are planted over a mix of limestone and compacted sandstone, known in the region as ‘gréseux’. Harvested together, the mixed grapes went through carbonic maceration as whole bunches over one month and a week. The wine was then pressed into amphora and old barrels to rest for one year. As with all of Heidi & Hubert’s wines, there are no additions at any stage.
Hubert & Heidi Hausherr, along with their long-serving draft horse Skippy, are working just shy of four hectares of vines around the leafy medieval village of Eguisheim.
In a region renowned for its diverse terroirs, the vines are dotted around in a number of small parcels over contrasting limestone marls and gréseux, the local compacted sandstone. These are beautiful vineyards with some of the vines planted by Hubert’s father back in the 1960s. As per tradition, many of these plantings are mixed, with varietals such as Gewürztraminer, Riesling, Pinot Gris, Auxerrois, Sylvaner and more all jumbled together, leading to many of the wines being harvested and vinified as field blends – multiple varietals expressing a single location.
Shadowed by the Vosges mountains to the west, despite its northerly position this is a very warm, dry microclimate with long, hot summers with little rain. The potential for high alcohol and a loss of balance in the wine requires careful vineyard work – the cooling marls are very useful for this, likewise big leafy canopies and a south-easterly aspect for morning sun and afternoon shade.
These glorious surroundings are undermined without respect for nature, so it follows that Hubert & Heidi are strong advocates for organic and biodynamic farming and are certified for both, as well as being part of the S.A.I.N.S. association for wine without additives. The soils are ploughed only by horse, and there are no inputs or manipulations in the cellar of any kind. They firmly believe this is the only way.
The cellar itself is a thing of beauty – the grapes are always pressed by hand and two manual, vertical wood-slat presses have been built by Hubert, both with striking mosaic-tiled bases that the juice runs off. Most wines begin their vinification as whole bunches in carbonic maceration, the aim being to achieve great finesse and lifted aromatics. After this stage the juice is raised in a mixture of amphora and old barrels until it is ready to be bottled.
Hubert & Heidi’s dedication has not been without its challenges – many producers in the region share the same climate-related stories and it is hard not to notice the connection between rising temperatures, earlier harvests and the resulting unpredictable behaviour of the wild yeasts. Often fermentations can stop before all of the sugar has been converted. Patience and resourcefulness are essential in these moments and we’re happy to say that in the face of adversity there are tiny quantities of stunning wine emerging from the cellar, whilst others shape themselves more slowly over time.
We were so taken with the clarity of the couple’s vision, their dedication to this small piece of land and their unwillingness to compromise. The wines dazzle in their fantastically pure expression, with sumptuous concentration, soaring aromatics and pitch-perfect balance. They are everything we look for in quality Alsatian wine.
