Last night I was very happy to host a fellow wine blogger (Torsten from Winerambler) and my old chum ‘The Kid’ Peter for a Riesling and Pinot Noir-themed tasting. We drank copiously and terribly well. The wines were served blind which heightened our critical faculties. Even the English wine was good (immensely unbelievable as that sounds).

Classic Cuvee 2003, Nyetimber
Wow, this smells like proper fizz and it is English, I’m staggered. It has pronounced mushroomy and toasty characters. Wow, its not immediately horrible and vapid. There is plenty of ripe fruit on the nose, which edges toward being very slightly over-mature, but that is 2003 for you, even in Blighty it seems. There is a reasonable degree of class to this; it may not be the most riotously complex of sparkling wine noses but there is more than enough to keep the fizz-lover interested. And it is an English wine that doesn’t smell thin and insipid, my mind is spinning! The mousse seems reasonably refined and there is some tasty fruit on the palate. I like its acidity, pretty well balanced and certainly keeping this fresh. The finish is remarkably long, with a pleasing array of vibrant fruit characters persisting. This is properly good sparkler. Hell’s bells, I just said the extraordinarily improbable statement that an English wine is properly good; are there no certainties left in the world?

Riesling Spatlese Piesporter Goldtropfchen 2003, Reinhold Haart
A tits-out nose of gloriously sun-ripened fruit; this is distinctly exotic but still unmistakably Mosel Riesling. Its pineapple/grapefruit characters could suggest this is a Scheurebe, but it seems more like very ripe Riesling. Not over-ripe, but attractively voluptuous. The palate is a little short on acidity, but it has completely lovely fruit and an appealing sweetness. There is some prominent minerality showing here as well, and it is quite stylish, this was grown in a top vineyard. This is one of the best examples of 2003 German Riesling I’ve had, it is pretty balanced, has well-defined fruit and a quite grown-up vineyard character. Good stuff, thanks Torsten.

Riesling Grand Cru Sommerberg ‘D’ Vendanges Tardives 2005, Albert Boxler
This nose has real VT character, candied fruit and manifest power. It is also incredibly mineral but this character shows itself with a lot of finesse. It is almost surprising that a wine this big can display such elegant and beautiful minerality. It is a wonderful nose that would tweak the lewd bits of any lover of fine things. The palate also has late harvest power, but as it commits frankly debauched acts in your mouth the balance is never less than faultless. Its acidity is searing and stomach slashing (ouch, ouch, ooooowwww… I’ll need the Gaviscon soon enough), there are dumper-truck loads of candied citrus fruit and the minerality is spell-binding. It is not the scale or power that make me love this wine, and I love it oh so much, it is the harmony and panache which so many Alsace VTs just don’t seem to manage. My last bottle of this tremendously fine wine, alas.

Auxey-Duresses Premier Cru 2006, Comte Armand
Now this smells like proper Burgundy, it has inviting dark fruit and a powerful earthiness. There is some power to this nose, but it is not in any way overblown or overly focussed on muscle. This is the nose of Pinot from the correct place, alright; there is charm, class and complexity on show. The palate also has power and a rather rigorous tannic structure, it is a tad on the tough side but has more than enough dark, ripe fruit to keep the balance satisfactory. This makes me think that the clout this wine has is quite finely honed and I think it would be a good wine to age. When trying this blind I thought this was a good Nuits-Saint-Georges Premier Cru, which shows it has some pretentions to style and quality. I should have got this right. I love Comte Armand wines and have tried far too many so I feel I could recognise the winemakers finger-prints all over it. It is a sad day when I cannot spot Comte Armand wines, when the label was revealed I felt a smidgen of exasperation at my failure.

Vosne-Romanee Premier Cru les Suchots 2006, Domaine Confuron-Cotetidot
This smells breathtakingly beautiful. Its pure expression of complex, exotic fruit really warps my mind to its way of thinking, and this nose thinks it wants to mesmerise and captivate. Sure there is a good mineral character, but that enthralling fruit is what does it for me, an enchanting expression of Vosne. Oh bums, after that nose I feel a tad disappointed by the palate. The tannins have more than a suggestion of being significantly daunting and together with its far from reserved acidity they make the palate seem somewhat stiff and demanding. There is a lot of fruit there as well, and it is charm-tastic, lovely-licious fruit, but it is not quite in balance with the brutalist tannic structure. Its powerful earthiness is very convincing and really persists on what is a very long and multifaceted finish. There are many things to like about this wine, but ultimately it just falls a bit short of the mark.

Pinot Noir ‘Sangreal’ 2006, By Farr
There is more than a suggestion of stemminess on this nose, along with serious earthy power and plenty of really scrumptious fruit. Authentic complexity is present and I am rather compelled; if this was not one of my offerings I’d say after smelling this it was a genuinely good offering from the Cote de Nuits. The palate bursts with lots more of that scrumptious fruit which sits in appetizing harmony with a finely-wrought tannic structure and succulent acidity. That stemmy character is also present on the palate and I feel this, along with its intense earthiness, really add to the complexity. This is the best Australian Pinot Noir I’ve had since the brilliant and refined Mac Forbes wines. Top stuff, Mr Farr.

Riesling Auslese Goldkapsel Brauneberger Juffer-Sonnenuhr 1997, Fritz Haag
By all that is evil and malevolent this nose is stunning. It has definite traces of maturity, but the fruit is pulsing with excitement and vivacity. Super citrus action which you know is going to taste luminously lively. The powerful slate character is also persuades me that this is a wine of stylish class and refined sophistication. Yeah, this is a penetratingly compelling nose and no messing around. It tastes staggeringly acidic, but lovely, animated, energetic acidity which just makes makes my drool flow and draws me in to drink more and more. The slate minerality shows multifarious levels of captivating character which meld intricately with the acidity and enchanting, exquisite fruit to produce an utterly brilliant, breathtaking buccal experience. The enthralling harmony of this salaciously complex and indecently elegant wine blows my mind in an outlandish maelstrom of aesthetic ecstasy. We are lucky when we get to drink wines this good; I feel lucky. But then I also feel absolutely deserving and unreservedly worthy of such delights. Hooray for Riesling, Pinot Noir and all who love them!

We had some friends around earlier tonight and decided to open wines of general drinking standard. Some where very noticeably better than others.

Riesling Grand Cru Sommerberg L31E 2002, Albert Boxler
Whilst this has some pure fruit and refined minerality on the nose there is also a slightly dirty, cardboardy character as well; it is not corked but this not in entirely good condition. I do like its precise, very well-defined minerality though. The palate also has hints of that dirtiness which do distract from the other, quite lovely, characters of this wine. There is a lot of limey fruit and the minerality is really complex but the main character of this palate is its screaming, and quite painful, acidity. It is in perfect balance, though, and I love acidity even if it hates my stomach. Sadly this wine is not up to the very high standard I've come to expect from Boxler, but it is not really his fault; there is something a bit wonky about this bottle.

La Grola 2006, Allegrini
Lots of bitter cherry fruit on the nose. This is rather nice and I feel if I was presented it blind that fruit character would allow me to instantly guess it was Italian. I like it that it is not frighteningly alcoholic, it is a balanced, accessible nose even if it is not terribly complex. The palate has ripe but a touch bitter fruit which matches its slightly tough tannic structure quite well. There is good acidity as well. It has reasonable length with the bitter cherry fruit and acidity persisting. However, despite these good points it is still not terribly complex. Whilst this is certainly clean and fruity, it is a wine for people who like a bit of rough.

Cornas ‘Domaine de Rochepertuis’ 2004, Jean Lionnet
The plummy fruit on this nose is very attractive but quite understated, there is also the vaguest hint of greenness but it is not very prominent so this isn’t a problem. Indeed, these aromas together with its earthy tang make this quite complex; I like this nose quite a lot. More plummy fruit on the palate with some tannins which are a bit tough and very Cornas-y. The acidity is also very present and fits the Cornas model well. That hint of greenness also shows but it is not a problem in the slightest, it adds to the considerable complexity of this palate. I really like its long finish which shows its complexity of flavours very well. This is good stuff and was quite the bargain.

Riesling Grand Cru Altenberg de Bergheim Vendanges Tardives 1998, Domaine Marcel Deiss
This wine is from the period after Jean-Michel Deiss had lost his marbles and started making truly awful wines, so I’m worried before even tasting this. Oh deary me, this nose is unfeasibly dull. All it has is a bit of candied citrus fruit and a hint of oxidative baked apple character. That is it; this great vineyard from a great vintage making a wine that smells so utterly one dimensional shows there is a serious problem with the winemaking strategy. Hell’s bells, the palate is also quite dreary. There is a bit of sugar, the suggestion of acidity and slight hints of that candied fruit and nothing else. It should have powerful minerality and far more complex, late harvest fruit action. I’d like a lot more acidity too. This is another totally shameful performance by Deiss, it is light years away from the quality it should show and which he is quite capable of delivering if he put his mind (which is clearly deranged these days) to it. Rather than a complex, engaging, sex-tastic wine those of us who didn’t refuse to drink any more (which I did) had to slog through this vinous wallpaper of mind-buggering tedium. I’m perfectly willing to admit that M. Deiss is not my favourite person. He stopped making brilliant wines in order to produce baroque, over-blown wines of horribleness all justified by the most cretinous, asinine philosophy I’ve been forced to tolerate to since I read a religious philosophy book. The fellow is an arse and should have his vineyards confiscated. Sub-interest. Really very sub-interest.

I popped these on Saturday for the neighbours to enjoy and I have finally got around to typing my notes up. The Boxler was terribly good.

Pinot Grid Grand Cru Brand 2007, Domaine Albert Boxler
This has a rich, powerful nose of opulent white fruit which hints of being quite roasted. It certainly shows a lot of creamy minerality which makes this quite a complex and pleasing nose. The palate is also opulent and rich. Lots and lots of ripe fruit with some residual sugar clearly presently. The balance is just fine, though, as it has a real streak of screaming acidity running straight through it. So much acidity, in fact, that my poor, abused stomach is complaining about it. The minerality adds to the complexity of the palate and this persists on the rather long finish along with its fruit and acidity. For sure, this is a big wine, but it is balanced and throbs with interest.

Pinot Noir 2008, Delta
There is quite a lot of cherry and strawberry fruit on the nose, but not, if I am honest, that much else. The alcohol level is quite balanced, but this nose is mainly about being fruity and fun. The palate is also very fruity, and there is a reasonable tannic structure to it so it seems fairly lively. It has some length as well, but there is not much in the way of complexity to it. It is quite accessible and delivers some pleasure. As one of the cheaper wines in our ‘general drinking’ purchase I feel this is pretty much up to the expected level.

I’ve had some seriously good Rieslings in recent days; the two best ones in this flight were screamingly brilliant. Indeed, I’d go as far as saying that, Trimbach-style aside, Alsace Riesling does not get any better than these two. Shame about the knackered Z-H, but that is the risk you take when keeping these wines. The 2001 Z-H Rangen Riesling we popped recently was fine, but a 1998 popped a couple of weeks before was totally oxidised; do we have worries about the longevity of Z-H Rangen Riesling? Anyway, the notes!

Riesling Grand Cru Schlossberg Cuvée Sainte Catherine l'Inedit 2000, Domaine Weinbach
This has a livid, exciting but dense nose of fresh tropical fruit; passion fruit and mango. It is certainly big and buxom, but with all the intense minerality this displays it seems far from overblown. That creamy minerality really speaks of its origins, and its scale speaks of the ripeness of the grapes used in this cuvee. This is a passionate, sex-tastic nose that really begs you to have a taste. So I will. What a palate! Certainly big and powerful, with a noticeable amount of residual sugar, but it does not lack balance. The acidity is really impressive for a wine of this scale, giving it proper harmony. Its complex mineral character also shows strongly on the palate, and by my auntie’s nipples is it pleasing. Even though this does have residual sugar there is a savoury character to this which I always like in white wines. And I am yet to  mention the commanding fruit which dominates the palate, which I should do because it smacks a big smile across my chuffed visage. This is certainly up for drinking (with screaming pleasure) and I feel it is even better than the 2002 we had at The Ledbury on Monday night. Thrills, spills and orgiastic love from this wine; drink it and grin like an irritatingly smug person.

Riesling Grand Cru Brand 2000, Domaine Zind-Humbrecht
This also has a very large-scale, opulent nose, but the fruit is more like apricots and peaches rather than the tropical offering from the Inedit. The vineyard character, which my chum Jeremy accurately describes and being hot and roasted rather than mineral, is certainly present. There is a pretty serious alcohol burn to the nose, but with all of that fruit you don’t mind so much. The palate is a huge mouthful of sweet fruit, alcohol and just about enough acidity. There is quite a lot of residual sugar and given its merely passable acid levels this doesn’t seem as thrillingly harmonious as the Inedit. It is very tasty, though, and does deliver on the pleasure front especially if you like Rieslings to possess heroic levels of alcohol and intense, opulent fruit. Yeah this is properly good, but not as good as the Inedit.

Riesling Grand Cru Rangen Clos Saint Urban 2000, Domaine Zind-Humbrecht
A rather worrying shade of orange. A sniff: Yes, it is oxidised, past it and generally shagged out. There are hints on the pretty knackered palate that this was once a big, alcohol-and-fruit-driven wine with a lot of residual sugar, but it really is exhausted in the ‘nice drink’-sense.

Right, are you ready? Ok, let’s go!

Riesling Grand Cru Sommerberg Vendanges Tardives 2000, Domaine Albert Boxler
In contrast to the proceeding wines this nose of this seems a sculpted entity of pure finesse and beauty. There is some scale to it, and candied fruit hints, but its totally focussed minerality gives this an exquisite character which is mind-bendingly thrilling and exhilarating. To sniff this is not only to be taken on a roller-coaster ride of riveting intellectual excitement but also to be stunned by its visceral, sex-charged love-power. The palate is even more lewdly delicious. For sure, it is quite large in scale with a good blend of candied and fresh fruit, but its balance and focus boggle the mind. It has a really precise minerality, the totally clear-cut expression of which one expects from a Boxler Sommerberg; just so electrifying, man. The quite scary levels of acidity which slash their way across your palate keep even this clearly ripe, late-harvest palate in total harmony and bursting with pulsing, throbbing life. It not only screams balance, class and refinement, but also shouts how much it loves you and wants to make you happy. Easily one of the very best, most thrilling, rabidly exhilarating Vendanges Tardives Rieslings I’ve had.

Our final wine of the evening was a red to go with the partner’s excellent ragu bolognaise.

Cornas ‘Domaine Saint Pierre’ 1996, Paul Jaboulet Aine
A good, mature nose of soft red fruit and a pleasing earthy complexity. It is quite a polished and generally cleaned-up nose for Cornas. It certainly smells like it is in very good condition and generally up for drinking. And the taste? Ah, how disappointing, it suffers from ‘1996-syndrome’, which is to say the acidity levels are too high to be ultimately balanced. There is plenty of fruit, which is soft and charming, a good, rigorous but refined tannic structure, but that acid really bothers me. Not a bad wine, by any means, but the harmony is ultimately lacking.

Last night we had a brilliant meal at The Ledbury. The wine list was most keenly priced and we chose one top wine and one which was disappointing. Still, much fun was had; it is a great place to eat. Anyway, the wines:

Riesling Grand Cru Schlossberg Cuvée Sainte Catherine l'Inedit 2002, Domaine Weinbach
An explosive, decadent nose which just throbs with rich, ripe fruit and powerful minerality. Certainly a biggie, with concentration and power in spades, but not short on compelling, lovely charm (much like the winemakers themselves). It positively throbs with pulsing, thrusting life, no sign of oxidation at all. You’d have to be a pretty jaded Riesling drinker not to sniff this and chortle with mirth. The palate is also on the large-scale side. It has a powerfully rich fruitiness, a layered density of mineral flavours and searing but totally balanced acidity. What a palate! Big and weighty, for sure, but supremely harmonious. I’m charged up with aesthetic power after tasting this; to sip even the smallest taste is to love it and desperately want a bigger taste. Drink it now, boys and girls, its just scrummy.

Cote-Rotie ‘La Barbarine’ 2005, Gangloff
The fruit seems good and pure on the nose, but lacking a touch of the scented beauty I like in Cote-Rotie. Lacks complexity, too. It just seems a bit anonymous with nothing to really compel or draw you in to enjoy. The palate has a reasonable amount of fruit, but I don’t really go for the slightly over-extracted character it has. And those are pretty much the only characters the palate shows. It is short with no complexity to speak of. Deary me, a flat and boring Cote-Rotie from the great 2005 vintage, just what were they thinking when they made this wine? It didn’t take much thinking on our part to realise it was up to much. This ranks as ‘sub-interest’; if you want to buy good Cote-Rotie which is properly beautiful and complex stick to Clusel-Roch, Burgaud, Jamet or Jasmin.

The first three bottles of Alsace Grand Cru Riesling were showing terribly well. Then we had a blind tasting challenge courteousy of the that excellent chap Captain ‘The Kid’ Peter, before we finished up the evening with a quite obscenely brilliant bottle of (again) Alsace Riesling. I present the blind-tasting challenge in the form of an a podcast, because I thought it would be fun to hear me being humiliated when guessing in real time; I wasn’t too embarrassed by my performance, if I may be smug for a moment, I was pretty close but thought the wine was slightly grander than its actual appellation and vintage would suggest.

Riesling Grand Cru Brand 2001, Domaine Albert Boxler
This has a really voluptuous nose of ripe fruit and spicy minerality. It is really buxom and charming. This stunning minerality and concentrated fruit character compel me totally, it is a  livid, lively entity of total desirability. I last had a bottle of this in September 2007 and thought it was time to drink. Judging by the expressive beauty and complex charm displayed by this nose I was wrong; it is full of giving, exciting life and will be for years to come. The palate is utterly beguiling. It has lots of powerful fruit, an incredibly pure and focussed earthiness and quite staggering amounts of acidity. There is so much to this palate, it has real size and scale, but it is totally, wildly, amazingly harmonious. The interplay between the intense fruit, searing minerality and dazzling, spectacular acidity just leaves me astounded. It is lewdly long and colourfully complex. Rarely do we get to drink wines this good, and we should treasure those moments when we are enjoying them, especially when we get to drink them with those who are important to us.

Riesling Grand Cru Brand 2001, Domaine Zind-Humbrecht
This has an even more voluptuous and exotic nose, it really has the extreme ripeness and power one expects from a Z-H wine certainly in terms of its rich, fruity profile. ‘The Kid’ and I suggest that, after the Boxler, this is lacking a touch of vineyard expression, but we could not deny the completely compelling nature of its myriad aromas. The partner thinks this is more expressive of the hot, roasted fruit character he wants from the Brand Grand Cru*. One thing we could clearly agree on after merely sniffing this was that this wine is going to be out where the big dogs eat, most definitely. Tits out for the boys, OK? Then we get to taste it. Wow, what a mouthful. The alcohol level might distract the ultimate Riesling purist, but if you try something so powerfully fruity and driven by passion you can forgive a bit of warmth. The minerality is certainly very exciting as is the acidity, even if, compared to the Boxler, they are not at the lewd end of experience. It is a commanding presence in the glass and on one’s palate. Great length, astounding complexity and really fun to drink. ‘The Kid’ and I preferred the Boxler because of its incredible harmony, the partner preferred this because of its opulent, exotic and complex character. Certainly these two are amongst the finest Rieslings I’ve had in… oh… a period of time.

Riesling Grand Cru Rangen Clos St. Urbain 2001, Domaine Zind-Humbrecht
Olivier Humbrecht was rather chuffed with this wine when the Oxford crew visited many years ago and tasted his range; I suppose I must have been impressed too otherwise I wouldn’t have scored myself a bottle. It has a really gorgeous nose of ripe, but not overblown, fruit. It has the minerality to make it properly interesting as well. Not as extreme in terms of intensity as the two Brand wines, but quite indulgent none the less. This is a lovely, really totally honestly, a lovely nose. Ah, I have a tiny bit of a problem with the palate now I’ve tasted it, there is the smallest suggestion of dirtiness to it and I don’t want that in my Alsace Rieslings. Sure, the fruit is lovely, the minerality compelling and the acidity quite well balanced, but I am a bit distracted by this vague hint of dirtiness. I’ll taste it again in ten minutes. [tick, tock…] And now I don’t get that dirtiness at all, that lovely ripe fruit and interesting minerality stand out much more. This is a seriously impressive Alsace Grand Cru, and whilst all three of us agree that this is not as stratospherically radiant as the two Brand Rieslings, it is a damned good wine.

After we had tried and re-tried all three of these Rieslings over a period of time we were sure that they were all some of the most wonderful examples of Alsace Grand Cru Rieslings we could wish to taste and drink. I was worried that 2001 Alsace Rieslings, especially the Z-H’s, might be over the hill (I have had a lot of prematurely oxidised Alsace Riesling of late): not a bit of it! Indeed, we all thought they were all quite youthful, fresh and lively. This was especially true of the Boxler, which seemed to be in a state of arrested development. No rush to drink these wines, boys and girls. I would go as far as saying that with the two Brand wines I felt that there was so little development showing in them one would probably get most pleasure drinking them on purchase. I’d like to do the experiment and keep them for ten years longer and see what happens, but I’ve only got one bottle of one of them left. Ah well, easy come easy go.

These three amazing, brilliant wines were followed by Peter’s blind tasting challenge. When he told me that he was bringing a bottle of Pinot Noir he said I’d get it right in one guess; I’m pleased someone has confidence in my blind tasting ability. To hear me rave about this wine and make my guess as to what it was click here.

For those who don’t feel the need to listen to my hideous Oxbridge drawl I shall reveal all. My guess was Domaine Dujac Morey-Saint Denis Premier Cru 2002, it was Domaine Dujac Morey-Saint-Denis villages 2004. Quite one of the most ravishing and charm-tastic 2004s I’ve had, really excessively pleasing. I was so moved by the allure of it I felt the need to give Peter and the partner a big hug for being part of the experience of this lovely wine. It has been a while since I popped an 04 red Burgundy and it is clear the the Dujac boys and girls delivered the goods in this not entirely easy vintage. Then we moved on to the final wine of the evening.

Riesling Grand Cru Sommerberg ‘D’ Vendanges Tardives 2005, Domaine Albert Boxler
This has a nose bursting with real late harvest character; a bit like candied fruit but fresher and more livid. It has real concentration but is not short on finesse and class. It is a totally gripping and unreservedly engaging nose. If you were poured a glass of this and didn’t love it the moment its aromatic molecules drifted up your nose then you can only be some form of really unhappy person who doesn’t really want to have a good time. I’m having a great time just smelling this, but I suppose I should get around to drinking some before the boys neck it all. Yes, oh yes, what a palate. For sure it is very ripe, with sweet, candied fruit present in spades, but as so often happens with Boxler wines it is the harmony which wins me over. The acidity would be terrifying in any wine less boldly structured than this, and the refined Sommerberg minerality adds to this expression of complete poise and equilibrium. It is a big, intense, indulgent mouthful, but not only don’t you get tired drinking it, you feel a burning desire to have more and more. I don’t have any left. Bugger.

---

*The story of the Brand Grand Cru: We are told that in the middle ages, Turkheim’s local dragon had a battle with the sun. The dragon lost and was banished to a cave under the hill behind Turkheim, specifically under the Brand Grand Cru. Since then the dragon’s fiery breath has kept the vineyard warm and this leads to the roasted, hot character of wines from the Brand.

I’m very pleased to be drinking this. Not only do I love Boxler wines but also given my luck with Alsace Riesling recently I am very glad it is not the slightest bit oxidised and is in absolutely top condition. The L31DII designation was only used in the 2002 vintage for a plot of his oldest vines on a sector of the Sommerberg Grand Cru that has a unique soil type in the Grand Cru. The difference between the L31D (which appears every vintage) and the L31DII is just matter of how ripeness, the ripest grapes going into the L31DII. How do we know it is an L31DII? Look at the top-left corner of the label and squint at the tiny characters there.

Riesling Grand Cru Sommerberg ‘L31DII’ 2002, Domaine Albert Boxler
There is real power on the nose, all of that gorgeous ripe fruit and stunning creamy minerality give this an impression of scale. You can smell the old vines concentration and by all that is evil this has the nose of stylish wine that simply oozes class. Good as smelling it is, it is not enough; I must drink! The palate is big, with weight and density but also some of the most frighteningly high acid levels I’ve experienced in Alsace Riesling outside of the more linear Trimbach wines. Wow, that acidity is quite serious. The minerality seems rich and powerful and there is a excellent concentration of fruit. Despite its size there is no question that the balance is anything other than superb. It is beginning to mature but there is no rush to drink this wine, it’ll be around for a while yet. I am totally compelled and generally smitten with yet another dazzling wine made by the great Jean Boxler. Please never do a Deiss and lose your winemaking marbles, M. Boxler.

Brilliant, I tell you. Stunningly, mind-warpingly, lewdly brilliant.

I’ve occasionally been asked how I got into wine. This is a bit of a difficult question to answer as I started so young I am not really sure what was the initial spark.

My parents were not at all interested in wine, there was not much wine consumed in the home environment. I didn’t get my love for wine from them.

I’m told that my mother got a free copy of The World Atlas of Wine from a book club when I was about five or six. Apparently, even at that tender age I would pour over this for hours, reading about all the wine regions and different producers. Why I found this so fascinating I cannot recall.

I do recall the next step in the genesis of my love for wine very clearly. Just before my ninth birthday my mother and step-father visited Alsace. They did not taste many wines, but brought back a bottle of Riesling Cuvee Frederic Emile 1979 from Trimbach. I’d read about this wine and producer so I asked if I could try some to see what it was like. I was given a small glassful and as I sniffed and tasted it galvanised me with its lively, exciting set of flavours. I am quite sure my appreciation of it was not terribly sophisticated at the age of eight, but I remember saying to my mother as I tasted it, “Wow, wine really can be good. This one tastes of so many things*”. I love Alsace Riesling to this day.

After this deeply compelling experience I tried to get my mother to buy more wines and let me try them. At that point she was yet to develop her appreciation for wine so joined the unspeakable Sunday Times Wine Club and ordered the filth they sell without realising these were dreadful wines. None of these had such a profound effect on me as the CFE 79.

I was extremely fortunate to be close friends with a boy at school, Daniel Cadbury (are you out there, Daniel?) whose parents loved wine, and in 1985 they had a family holiday in the Bergerac/Monbazillac area of France. They went to a few tastings and some of the wines we tried were pretty good; I was chuffed to score myself a bottle of 83 Chateau de Monbazillac.

The most amazing part of the holiday was when we took a day trip to Sauternes and Barsac to try the 83s and 84s. We visited La Tour Blanche, Climens, d’Arche and (quite incredible that, as a family group, we blagged our way in here) Chateau Gillette. The differences between the producers and vintages were clear when I tasted so many in one day. Once again, I was moved by the power of quality wine.

Sadly, then it was back to the dross from the Sunday Times Wine Club (with the occasional bottle of good stuff from the Cadburys) until I looked old enough to buy my own wine (it is handy being a tall person at times). That is when things really took off. I read more, purchased widely and tasted with great pleasure. My local wine merchants, Oddbins and Bottoms Up, still had a lot of interesting wines in those days and I would frequently buy something well-reviewed to drink with my school teachers. I didn’t view my fellow students as being enlightened enough to merit having any these precious drops of nectar; I wanted to talk about wine and other teenagers just knew nothing about it. I soon became aware that the teachers didn’t know that much either, but at least they were articulate.

Sometimes the discoveries were quite serendipitous. I went to the Australian Wine Centre (just off The Strand in those days) for the  first time when I was seventeen (with my mother’s credit card) to buy some St. Hallett Old Block Shiraz; I’d read a lot about it and thought it worth trying. I went to pay for my few bottles and the frankly enormous Australian fellow behind the counter said, “You don’t want to buy those, you want some of this.” He pulled out a bottle of Tim Adams Aberfeldy Shiraz, pulled the cork and poured me a slug. I tasted it and said, “I’ll take four bottles. Does this Tim Adams chap make anything else good?” He grinned and said, “Yeah, I think I do.” The man himself was visiting England and doing a stint in the shop. We chatted about wine as we drank most of the bottle of Aberfeldy and I was so impressed by both the charming Mr Adams and his wines I knew I would be sold on them for as long as he continued to make wine. I was right, I still drink and enjoy Tim Adams wines and recommend them to anyone who wants keenly-priced, quality Australian wine. I met Mr Adams at the London Wine Trade Fair a few years back (he is still extremely tall) and related the anecdote, he remembered!

Then I went to Oxford University and started tasting more wine than I ever thought I would. I was a member of the Oxford Wine Circle, a winning captain of the blind tasting team**, turned up to the merchants’ tastings when they tried to sell wines to the colleges and had weekly tastings with a select few people in evenings which will forever be burnt in my memory as the ‘casa Schleiss tastings’. Not all the wines I tried were the very finest, but a surprisingly large number were considering we were poor students. My chum Mr T and I once went through all of our notes for the past year and were both surprised and pleased to realise we had tasted over three thousand different wines. Good going, but a shame it included a lot of dull, cheap Clarets aimed at the conservative college buyers. This epic wine experience taught me well; I know that Burgundy is best, but good Riesling, Sherry, Champagne and others can also deliver the goods. I even liked the very flashest Clarets we tried, and some of them were incredibly flash, but soon learned they were too expensive for my tastes.

I do not try as many wines these days and largely limit myself to wine styles and producers I enjoy. I confess to being pleased I no longer have to regularly put New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc in blind tastings to try and teach people to recognise it. That being said, my knowledge of wine is still broad and I get a lot of pleasure out of blind tasting. A few years ago I was working for an unmentionably filthy wine merchant (I lasted almost two months before the inevitable ‘going totally insane and trying to kill myself’-experience which has characterised all my 9-to-5 jobs since developing paranoid schizophrenia; this was the longest I managed to hold down a regular job since 1999) who paid for their employees to take the Wine and Spirit Education Trust Advanced Certificate exam. I skimmed the course text book, finished the exam in quarter of the time allowed and passed it with a distinction.

So that, dear reader, is the story of my early years with wine. As I said, I cannot pin down the initial spark that made me want to learn about wine, but I am slightly amused that I have  been compelled by properly fine wine from the age of eight onwards.

---

*I’ve had CFE 79 on many occasions since becoming more deeply educated about wine and wine tasting, and I was clearly right with my first assessment, it always has tasted of a lot of things.

**I’m told I was a very demanding blind tasting instructor. When someone (who shall remain nameless) said that a rather large Australian Shiraz was Beaujolais I laughed so much I fell off my chair. I don’t suppose that was terribly supportive or encouraging.

We are told the Grand Cru Brand is best for Pinot grape varieties? Does pretty well with Riesling too. This is a vivid, lively example of utter pleasure.

Riesling Grand Cru Brand 2002, Domaine Albert Boxler
The nose, ah the nose. It has so much earthy minerality and yet bursts with clean, ripe citrus fruit. This is a really expressive and compelling nose, it smells like a wine made from pampered vines from a great vineyard. Sure there is some scale here, but finesse as well; it is enjoyable to sniff. There is a lot of that complex minerality and earthiness on the palate and the fruit is well integrated in this earthy, acidic, slightly astringent structure. The astringency is very slight and adds to the complexity of the tastes and textures. These facets of the wine are indeed very complex and persist long, long after you have swallowed. I don’t think you need to keep this wine any longer. It is not old, quite fresh in fact, but running the risk of such a great wine being oxidised is too high a price. You want to drink and enjoy these wines before they get shagged out.

Every time I have a Boxler wine my love for them increases. The man can turn his hand to any Alsace varietal and make one of the top examples of the region. Sure the Rieslings are best and most spell-binding, but if you go to a tasting chez Boxler you would be a fool to turn down any wine offered, be it Grand Cru or generic.

We met ‘The Kid’ Peter at the Greenwich Union for a couple of pints then came back to horrible, horrible Woolwich for a spot of dinner. We drank extraordinarily well for a random occasion.

Riesling Grand Cru Sommerberg L31DII 2002, Domaine Albert Boxler
Wow, a nose with the purity and freshness of mountain air. There is a lot of fruit here but the great, lively character just keeps it seeming fresh and vivid. The minerality on this nose, and there is a lot, is totally focussed – focussed on giving me a good time it seems. This is a vibrant, exciting nose in the full flow of pleasure-giving life. The palate: Wow. The fruit is beguilingly fresh and the minerality is so piercing. Like the nose it is just throbbing with life. Yes, it is very ripe and has a hint of sweetness, but with the delicacy and finesse this wine has you won’t need to drink it with foie gras. It is really, really lovely, and not falling apart in the slightest. This is the kind of Alsace Riesling we all hope to drink regularly.

Charmes-Chambertin Grand Cru 1999, Domaine Arlaud
This is a nose of dark Pinot fruit, ripe with hints of meatiness and spice. But above and beyond that it has a very pure and beguiling expression of charming, fresh fruit. This nose is up for displaying its life and clearly it has a long life ahead of it. Really, really attractive. So is the palate. A good, solid tannic structure which is on the right side of rigor and has loads of really lovely fruit. Yeah, this is a proper bottle of Burgundy alright. It has the beauty, love and raw tits sex action we want from decent Burgundy. There is multi-layered pleasure here and I am enjoying this no end. Yeah. Cyprien Arlaud has serious talent when it comes to making the good stuff and we should all try and buy as much as possible.

I’ve just smelled this and I’m totally taken with it.

Riesling Grand Cru Sommerberg L31E 2004, Albert Boxler
A heady, opulent nose of rich fruit and powerful minerality. The fruit is very fresh lemon and lime, with a hint of crisp apple, and the minerality is rich and creamy. For all Boxler’s complexity and style, sometimes it is just the love with his wines that sweeps you away. This nose is certainly charged with love and it is a proper Riesling nose. The palate has an incredible acidity to balance the undoubted breadth that this wine has. Delicious, delicious fruit is very present. There is a hint of alcoholic warmth on the finish, but since the finish is so generally complex and extremely long I am not terribly worried about this. Love is a big theme in this wine, the palate delivers it too. I love it. Jean Boxler is a brilliant master when it comes to Riesling, to drink them is to love them forever.

Since the prevailing opinion is that we should be drinking these things before they get too old, this is what we are doing.

Riesling Grand Cru Sommerberg Vendanges Tardives 'D' 2005, Albert Boxler
Oh, oh yes. This is a stellar entitiy on burning intensity on the nose. Candied fruit and richness are there in abundance, but the minerality is utterly wonderful. Yeah. This has a real expression of place, it is so much like other Sommerbergs, but it is the most intense and focussed expression of Sommerberg I've had in, oh, weeks. Brilliant, throbbingly sex-tastic action. The palate has some sweeteness, but an incredible depth of character which burns with classy acidity and minerality. The fruit on the palate is top-totty-tastic. We don't put things that are this good in our mouths that often. There was a time when I would have suggested drinking this over the next 10 years or so, these days I think that is a bit enthusiastic. This is a great wine, drink it now with hilarious pleasure.

I've been in Estonia for the past few days. Not my favourite place to be, but I wanted to visit the partner. This is a great bottle to pop with the friends next door who are 'baby-sitting'.

Pinot Gris Grand Cru Sommerberg Vendanges Tardives 2005, Domaine Albert Boxler
Essence of peach on the nose, fruity in a quite wild and loony sense. Wow, the florid craziness of this nose is quite compelling, and also mind warping. This nose rams the very ripest apricots and peaches right up your nostrils. There is a lot to this, even beyond that provided by the fruit. It has shades of botrytis and there is that creamy minerality of Sommerberg in spades. This nose is good, no freaking doubt about that. The intensity of the palate adds to the level of hallucinogenic trippery that this wine is delivering. The sweet fruit is clearly there, it has a seriously interesting mineral taste and the acidity is enlivening. And, after all of that, the harmony is beguiling. Let us be honest, you want to drink this soon whilst it is in its final flush of life, you'll have a lot of fun when you do it. Abso-tmesis-lutely wonderful, so good to have friends who open these things for one.

Following conversations with Jeremy about concerns with these big Alsace Riesling's ageing profile, we thought it might be wisest to enjoy them as they pulse with bursting youth. I will never forget this wine.

Riesling Grand Cru Sommerberg Vendanges Tardives 'Cuvee Zacharie' 2004, Albert Boxler
This is being drank at cellar temperature and at this slight chill the nose undulates with fine, focused, freaking beautiful aromas. It is a vibrant expression of the vineyard aroma, concentrated through the late-harvest Riesling characters. This, oh yes, this is a surgingly good nose. For all its thrusting focus, penetrating purity and fruity, fancy finesse it explodes with complex, compelling rich, totally charming fruit. How can I possibly describe this palate of total sexy and intellectual hedonism? It has incredible, spell-binding acidity, amazing candied fruit and screaming minerality of consciousness-expanding brilliance. The complexity and length are twisting my mind with their beauty. Drink it now, boys and girls, but only share the bottle with your most appreciative of friends.

I suppose some people would think that the world’s best Gewurztraminer would be even more pointless than the best Muscat. I disagree. A wonderful, fruity, floral Gewurz can be a baroque treat of a wine. This one is a really special treat of hilarious compelling wonderfulness.

We are told the Brand Grand Cru is best for Pinot varieties, but it strikes me that the Rieslings and Gewurztraminers can be pretty serious too. Zind-Humbrecht Brand Riesling is often stunning (even though the ZH flame has somewhat died for me). Boxler also makes a very individual Brand Riesling which is a very clear expression of the terroir. It is manifestly one of the top Alsace Grand Crus.

I do recognise the question ‘But when do you drink a wine like this?’ is a pretty good one. It’d be easy to say with cheese, but this one worked a treat as an afternoon drinkie for my chums and me; it’d be a good afternoon drink for you too.

Gewurztraminer Grand Cru Brand Vendanges Tardives 2007, Domaine Albert Boxler
The nose is very floral with rose petals and lychees. There is a rich, earthy complexity to it. Real late harvest candied fruit as well. This charms and excites, I remember my incredible enthusiasm when I first tried this at Boxler; I was right. The palate has lots of fruit, moderate sweetness and a great spicy complexity. It has massive depth and weight, but dances across my palate. Sure, it is large-scale, but not really a fighting wine; there is balance and harmony, elegance and finesse here which raise this to a much higher level of brilliance. Big but stunningly attractive, like having an amorous tussle with the 6’6” tall girlfriend I had at school. She was massive, terribly beautiful and quite, quite bonkers*. Oh yes.

*She used to eat tinned cat food. This wine is merely slightly bonkers and in a less revulsion-inducing manner.

OK, it is a bit more minor than the Muscat, but we enjoyed this with a lot of pleasure. You cannot really go too far off the path if you buy Sorg. For London kids you can get it by the bottle at Fortnum’s.

Gewurztraminer Vieilles Vignes 2007, Domaine Bruno Sorg
This has a deep, rich nose of roses and a degree of liquorice/banana action is there as well. This is properly concentrated and fruity, with a reasonable degree of complexity on the nose. The palate is lovely and weighty, but with amazing acidity. Ow, ooww, oooowwww… quite a lot of acidity. There is complexity here too. This is a quite delicious and reasonably thought-provoking bottle of Gewurztraminer. Yeah, it is good.

I loved this in France, but with the drugs working and being more in control of my nut-case tendencies, everything conspired to make me feel wonderfully positive. I think my notes were accurate, but I was prepared to see the pleasing aspects of things if enough were there. Will this still be the best Muscat I've tried? I'll tell you...

Muscat Grand Cru Pfersigberg 2007, Domaine Bruno Sorg
Wow, a truly charming honeysuckle nose. Extremely floral and attractive. This is very refined but it smells like it has a good bit of density. The floral fruitiness is just ravishing, but there is a good minty minerality here which marks this out as being a step ahead. Oh, oh yes, this is a hedonistic rapture of a nose. Sure, the palate has a bit of residual sugar, but great acidity (honestly!) and a really tangy minerality. More of that mint is here. Of course, the fruit is a wanton harlot of pleasure. This is really, seriously now, the best mostly dry Muscat I've had. Why didn't we visit here in our early 90s trips, boys? We were staying in Eguisheim. There serious examples of all grape varieties here (avoid the cremant, though, it is undrinkable) and no one makes better Muscat. Neither Zind-Humbrecht nor Burn, Sorg is better.

Yes, this is still the best bottle of Muscat I've tried. I'm still feeling pretty much on top of the world.

I popped this to lubricate the cooking of some Thai food for my Burgundian chums. It was really good, but the name of it is a bit of a mouthful.

Riesling Grand Cru Schlossberg Cuvee Saint Catherine l’Inedit 1998, Domaine Weinbach
A ripe, concentrated baked-apple nose. Very mineral, very deep, rather attractive. This is serious, complex Riesling. The palate has weight and concentration, but fine, fizzing acidity as well. The balance is just wonderful. Bugger me, this is mineral. Wow, great stuff that is really up for drinking now.

My chum Jeremy and I had a little chat about these kind of super-titted-out Alsace Rieslings and we agreed that we probably won’t have to keep those we have for as long as we originally thought. Our feeling is that some we have tried have been ageing surprisingly quickly. This bottle was drinking as well as it ever would, and keeping it longer would just be a risk.

Jean Boxler makes totally brilliant wines which, I am afraid, moved me to incoherence on the last few. I really, really enjoyed this tasting. His wines are clearly my favourite in Alsace.

Pinot Blanc ‘B’ 2007
This is Pinot Blanc grown on the Brand Grand Cru. Really mineral and creamy. There is some honey too. Great fruit on the palate with a hint of astringency. Tasty! This is probably the best Pinot Blanc one can buy and this vintage of it is really super.

Riesling 2007
Nice and fruity with pronounced minerality. The palate is very juicy and tasty. Yum. Even better than the Sorg generic Riesling for only a shade extra cash.

Riesling Grand Cru Sommerberg ‘JV’ 2007
Young vines cuvee. Very mineral. Very fruity, too. Strawberries, I think, which is a bit odd on a white wine. The acidity is strong and a bt raw, but there is style here.

Riesling Grand Cru Sommerberg 2007
Riper and round. Buxom, and I like buxom. The palate is classy, stylish and really mouth-watering. The balance is quite superb. This is damned good.

Riesling Grand Cru Sommerberg ‘E’ 2007
Oh yes!*

Riesling Grand Cru Brand 2007
Peachy, rich nose of ripe fruit. The fruit has a highly-attractive cherry character. The weight and ripeness are totally in harmony with great acidity. This is a really good, if slightly buxom, Riesling.

Riesling Grand Cru Sommerberg ‘D’ 2007
An amazing nose of ripe fruit that is incredibly concentrated and amazingly mineral. This utterly compels me. The palate? Well… erm… Tits? Big, round tits.

Riesling Grand Cru Sommerberg ‘D’ 2002
Quite petrolly, but the ripe citrus fruit still shines out. Lovely nose, alright. This is super fun action with great minerality. This is still tits.

Pinot Gris 2007
There is a lot to like about this wine: the fruit, concentration and minerality are all superb. The thing you’ve really got to love, though, is the acidity; this keeps it lively and balanced. Yeah.

Gewurztraminer 2007
Liquorice and banana on the nose. A bit confected, though. OK, but far from a cigar.

Pinot Gris Grand Cru Sommerberg 2007
This is a bit sweet. However, the interplay between minerality, acid and fruit give it a really interesting texture. This is quite, quite delicious.

Pinot Gris Grand Cru Brand 2007
This has the great Brand Pinot ripeness and fruit. The expressive minerality is totally beguiling. Yeah, this is what fun is all about.

Pinot Gris Grand Cru Sommerberg Vendanges Tardives 2006
A voluptuous and heady nose of fruit and compelling deliciousness. After I tasted this I was dumb-struck for a period of time. Arse-bitingly good. Love the acid-trip, man.

Riesling Grand Cru Sommerberg ‘D’ Vendanges Tardives 2005
A spell-binding, racy experience of stellar intensity. This is amazing.

Gewurztraminer Grand Cru Brand Vendanges Tardives 2007
Very rose petal. Extremely concentrated. I never thought I’d write this about a Gewurtztraminer, but I’m lost and in love. It’s got everything. This is a sex-bomb, alright.

*Sorry, that really is all I wrote. This is an older vines cuvee which has stunning purity of expression and incredible definition to the palate. The finish was long and bursting with life. 2007 is a really top vintage for this wine, it’ll have a long, pleasure-delivering life.

This was the first tasting on our lark-fest in France. Some really good wines and when you are buying direct it is super-keenly priced kit. The 2007 Grand Cru Muscat was probably the best dry(-ish) Muscat I’ve had.

Pinot Blanc 2008
Very fresh apple fruit nose. Nice acid and creaminess on the palate. This is a great drink for the price and quite fun too.

Riesling 2007
Lovely orange rind fruit. Very fresh and charming. Good acid on the palate and it is really dry. This is a top generic Riesling.

Riesling Grand Cru Florimont 2005
Lovely nose of fruit and flowers: gooseberries and elderflower, we decided. This has a great mineral tang to it. Lovely fruit and acidity make this a really mouth-watering drink. Proper wine already.

Riesling Grand Cru Pfersigberg 2004
Really peachy fruit on the nose. Super-top minerality. This smells like a grown-up glass of Riesling. The palate has a very good, precise minerality to it which I just love.

Muscat 2007
Mint leaf and grape nose. Light and refined. However, the palate is too light with no body. Not that hot.

Muscat Grand Cru Pfersigberg 2007
More of the mint leaf greenness on the nose, but also really floral. The palate has just enough sugar to give it weight and balance it out, but it is basically pretty dry. Really great finish. Clearly one of the best Alsace Muscats I’ve had.

Pinot Gris Vieilles Vignes 2007
Peachy, fleshy nose. Nice and deep. The palate has a real concentration of fruit. Whilst this oozes charm it is just a bit short if you ask me.

Pinot Gris Grand Cru Pfersigberg 2007
Stunningly intense minerality on the nose. Great fruit, too. That’s what I like: lovely, lovely fruit, great minerality, hugely long finish. Yeah, that is what I like!

Gewurztraminer Vieilles Vignes 2007
The nose has some foam banana finesse. A perfumey, lychee aroma as well. The palate has weight, and a touch of astringency which is quite nice. Good.

Gewurztraminer Grand Cru Pfersigberg 2007
Orange tea on the nose and that odd aroma we call ‘spice box’ is there as well. The palate is quite light and elegant with a good vineyardy character, but it seems a bit unforthcoming, is it a bit closed? Hmmm…

Gewurztraminer Grand Cru Eichberg 2007
A strong liquorice nose. It is very earthy, too. The palate is super, super charming with bags of elegance and super-refined fruit. This is a really top Gewurztraminer.

Gewurztraminer Selection des Grains Nobles 2001
This is super concentrated essence of Gewurztraminer. Lychees and bacon fat are here in abundance. Lots of botrytis. What a nose! It is brilliant! The palate is wonderfully rich and extra, super balanced. A really good SGN.

I’ve mentioned before that I am not the biggest fan of Zind-Humbrecht wines, all too often they are booze-tastic monsters. I’ve seen them clocking in at 16.5% in the past and this is not how I like my white wines. So imagine my surprise when I saw this on a bottle of Riesling Clos Winsbuhl Vendange Tardive 2004:

9%! I’m amazed! Fermenting with natural yeasts in a cold cellar does lead to some unpredictable results. I bet it’ll be very sweet, I hope it has the acidity to match. 9% is the kind of strength you’d expect in a German Auslese, I wonder how similar in style this will be. I’ll give it a few years before I find out.

My first wine in almost three weeks. There will be a lot more following on today.

Riesling Grand Cru Pfersigberg 2003, Domaine Bruno Sorg
A ripe, citrus, peachy nose, lots of fruit here. There is a lot of creamy minerality, too, which is just lovely. The palate has a real richness of fruit, which is slightly spicy. There is serious vineyard character here. The acidity is finely balanced, which is nice for a 2003 wine. This wine strikes me as a titillating little beauty which should charm the most jaded of Alsace critics. Lovely now but will age another five years.

This was a great bargain direct from M. Boxler. He is a charming fellow and a truly skilled wine-maker.

Riesling Grand Cru Sommerberg Vendanges Tardives "Cuvee Zacharie" 2004, Domaine Albert Boxler
There is real late-harvest candied fruit on the nose, with a lovely creamy minerality. As I suggested, this smells like glue (in a nice way); at least it doesn't cause 'instant death' as sniffing glue can do. The nose is really complex and bursting with tittilating interest. The palate is for tartness freaks, given the ripeness and density of this wine it is bitch acidic, man, leaving an almost burning sensation on the finish. This is great, though, with all its weight and scale it bursts with life and excitement. This is a nipple-nibblingly good wine, how I wish I had more.

When I was last chatting to my chums Jeremy and Gernot about my trip to Alsace they suggested that they could not see the point of Pinot Gris. I couldn't agree less. OK, if you get a flabby, sugar-laced offering from someone like Zind-Humbrecht it can be difficult to match with food; indeed I'd go as far as saying Pinot Gris like that are bloody hard to drink. However, drier, more balanced offerings with good acidity can match food very well. This bottle will slip down a treat with the chicken in cider I am cooking. It has weight, but lively acidity and minerality; a good match for the rich flavours in the food. I do agree that Alsace Riesling is often the way forward, but to dismiss Pinot Gris is a mistake; pleasure takes many forms.

Pinot Gris Grand Cru Brand 2006, Domaine Albert Boxler
A lovely, charming nose of ripe, peachy fruit with a backbone of good minerality. This smells fleshy and very attractive, which a good measure of complexity. The palate is basically dry, with plenty of pleasing fruit, very good acidity for a wine of this scale and damned-good vineyard character. The Brand Grand Cru is a top site for Pinot Gris, and Jean Boxler has extracted the very best quality from it for this wine. Of course, it needs drinking within the next 18 months or so; Pinot Gris doesn't age. I suppose if that was the point the Jeremy and Gernot were trying to make I'd have to agree, but I don't think the point of a wine rests with its longevity.

In the early nineties Jean-Michel Deiss was making spell-binding, exciting, thrilling Riesling; I snapped up all I could find and afford. Then, for some presumably psychotic reason, he decided that Riesling wasn't good enough on its own. He turned his interest to making field blends of different grape varieties, picking, fermenting and ageing them together. These wines have always been repulsively disgusting; they have confused flavours and unsatisfactory ageing profiles. They are also distractingly laced with residual sugar. I feel Jean-Michel has let down all the fans of his very best wines by producing such filth.

At my last tasting chez Deiss I hated every wine we tried, and I have to say I didn't take to the man himself largely because of the crap he spewed justifying his bonkers wine-making philosophy. One of the wines we tried was notably horrible, the 2000 Mambourg Grand Cru blend. It was oxidised and lacking any form of character that one would hope to be charmed by. Deiss himself claimed that this was the best wine he had ever made. Totally bonkers, I tell you. But not as hat-stand as me, it turns out. When I saw a bottle of this on a wine merchant's shelf I committed an act of pure insanity and purchased it.

I blame this screamingly butt-hole-crazy action on a residual degree of respect for M. Deiss; after all he had made some of the best Alsace Riesling I have had. But this is not really a good enough excuse. I'd tried the wine and it was mind-bendingly horrible. I have to stand up and say I made a horrific mistake and thrown good money away. I am worthy only of mockery for having purchased this shameful travesty of a wine. I'll age the wine as long as Deiss said it would last (15-20 years! Ha! What a twat) and pour it with the knowledge that I'll have opened and finally got rid of the worst bottle of wine I will ever own.

Lovely wines from Jean Boxler, especially his Rieslings. This is my last report from my holiday; I hope you have found them to be instructive.

Pinot Blanc "A" 2006
This is Boxler's basic Pinot Blanc rather than the one from the Brand Grand Cru. Nice gooseberry fruit with hints of pear. It is rather tasty with spiciness and weight. More than a degree of interest here.

Riesling Grand Cru Sommerberg JV 2006
This is the Sommerberg young vines cuvee. Nice elegant nose of fruit and creaminess. Some density of flavour on the palate, but it is the fruit and complexity that lift this into being a good experience.

Riesling Grand Cru Sommerberg L31E 2006
There is real intensity to the nose with powerful creamy minerality. Smells lovely. Quite dry with real complexity driven by the powerful minerality. Really lovely.

Riesling Grand Cru Sommerberg L31D 2006
A profound nose of rich minerality and great citrus fruit. This is the cat's rude bits. Tastes pretty dry with present acidity and a lot of mineral complexity. Tits++.

Riesling Grand Cru Brand 2006
Ripe, peachy nose. Buxom palate, quite long, but the flavours seem a touch confused and lacking harmony. Nice, but no Cuban to suck on.

Riesling Grand Cru Sommerberg Vendanges Tardives 2004
Real late harvest character of preserved fruit. Has lots of minerality, too. The palate is quite weighty and dense, but the fine acidity coupled with the sophisticated minerality make this seriously top bunny.

Pinot Gris 2006
Good white fruit and spice on the nose. Rich, weighty, spicy palate. This is reasonably complex and quite pleasing.

Muscat Grand Cru Brand 2006
Floral nose, with a hint of mint. Also a hint of drain cleaner which is not so attractive. Bit lean and dirty on the palate. Simple too. No thanks.

Pinot Gris Grand Cru Brand 2006
A subtle, perfumed nose on peach, spice and minerality. The palate has good scale, but the acidity and minerality keep this in great form. Really tasty, I am impressed.

Pinot Gris Grand Cru Sommerberg Vendanges Tardives 2005
An expressive nose of deep character. Great fruit, great minerality. Lovely depth and harmony on the palate. Real class, real style. Kick-arse good.

Pinot Gris Grand Cru Brand Selection des Grains Nobles 2005
Botrytis on the nose which is in perfect harmony with the white fruit and spice of the grape. The palate is perfectly balanced and as far as the finish goes: whoa, steroid boy!

A couple of bottles squeezed in between tastings.

Riesling Grand Cru Altenberg de Bergbieten 2002, Frederic Mochel
A reasonable pleasing nose of fruit which, together with its creaminess, suggest this should be reasonably attractive. The palate, alas, is not so pleasing. It is quite one-dimensional. A passable drink, but don't expect any fireworks.

Gewurztraminer Vendanges Tardives 2002, Andre Kientzler
Lots and lots of botrytis on the nose, very apricot. But is there is Gewurztraminer spice and banana finesse to it. The palate is quite dry, with a powerful, weighty structure. Not much minerality, I have to say, but nice enough.

Riesling de chez Riesling. Pierre Trimbach delivers the good if you like your wines to be dry.

Pinot Blanc 2005
Soft white fruit on the nose and palate with reasonable acidity. A nice enough drink.

Riesling 2006
A pleasing citrus nose, some creaminess. Nice fruit and good acidity on the palate. Should be a nice enough drink now with food.

Riesling Reserve 2006
Pretty, fine aromas. A good creaminess to it. Very pleasing fruit and a nice body. This seems fleshier than this wine usually is; making it, for such a basic wine at least, reasonably tits.

Riesling Cuvee M 2003
From the Mandelberg Grand Cru. Ripe, buxom pineapple fruit that expresses itself very clearly. It is mineral, too. This exists a lot on the palate as well which, along with the good acidity, keeps this lively.

Risling Cuvee Frederic Emile 2002
Nice spiced ripe apple fruit. There is a hint of petrol but it leans more toward ripe citrus. The palate has a concentrated depth of flavour and great acidity. Perfectly harmonious.

Riesling Clos Saint Hune 2003
Really ripe exotic flavours to inhale and enjoy. The palate is a touch fat, with merely passable acidity. It just manages to be nicely balanced and I love its complexity. Yum.

Riesling Cuvee Frederic Emile 2000
Nice limy green fruit, with a lovely mineral tang. The palate has serious stuffing, lots of weight and plenty of acidity. An excellent wine that is completely Trimbach in style.

Riesling Cuvee Frederic Emile 1997
A really complex nose. There is a lot going on there: honey, limes, melon, apple, creaminess. The palate is open and lovely. Great fragrance. Great fun now but with a lot of life ahead.

Riesling Cuvee Frederic Emile 1995
Very mineral nose that has a strange ginger bread character to it, this is not off-putting, though. Real elegance and finesse on the palate with a lovely developed finish. Nice age to drink it.

Riesling Cuvee Frederic Emile 2001 375th anniversary cuvee
An expressive, vivacious nose of compelling ripe fruit and a lot of stony fruit. The palate really draws you in, with lots of ripe fruit and really sophisticated minerality. Great finish.

Riesling Cuvee Frederic Emile 1990
Lovely nose that explodes with petrol action. Real complexity here. It is complex on the palate, too, with refined fruit and great acid. Seriously up for drinking with a lot of pleasure.

Riesling Clos Saint Hune 1983
Super ripe fruit on the nose and real creamy minerality too. This smells utterly wonderful. The palate sings a song of refined beauty which really fuels my passion for this wine.

A top place to visit when you are in the area; he may not always hit the spot, especially with the more minor wines, but when he does there is complexity and style-a-go-go. Morever, there is a great tarte flambee place just around the corner.

Pinot Blanc 2007
Nice, charming fruit. Some creaminess. Very good acidity makes this lively.

Sylvaner Vieille Vigne 2007
Quite fresh and grassy on the nose, but rather understated. Piss boring palate with bugger all fruit and bugger all of anything else, if we are honest.

Cremant d'Alsace
This is more than a bit dirty on the nose. No. No way. The palate is a god-awful melange of really dire flavours that are completely repulsive.

Muscat 2005
Honeysuckle nose with the perfume of freshly-cut grass. Smells reasonably appealing. The palate is very light and it appears as far as drinking this goes the train left the station a couple of years ago.

Riesling 2006
Fresh, light nose of lime fruit. Creamy palate with sharp, bright acidity which make this a lot of fun.

Riesling Grand Cru Florimont 2003
Baked apple on the nose, with a really compelling edge of minerality. The palate is charmingly fat, with a very voluptuous body. It does have enough acidity to keep the balance top bunny, though.

Riesling Grand Cru Pfersigberg 2003
Nice concentration of rich, ripe citrus fruit. It is also quite peachy. Serious complexity on the nose. The palate has a lot of weight and a lot of groovy style. Very good indeed.

Riesling Grand Cru Pfersigberg Vieille Vigne 2003
Serious density and fat. Weight and power on the palate, rather than much in the way of acidity. Impressive, but not so well balanced. This is not fitting in with Sorg's house style.

Riesling Grand Cru Florimont 2005
Now this has a nose: expressive, livid and lively. A lovely froal character to the nose. The palate is bursting with lovely, lovely fruit, with crisp acidity and great body. Classy tits, man.

Riesling Grand Cru Pfersigberg 2004
The nose is a little closed, but the Grand Cru character pokes its head out. The palate has good density, but the lightness given by the strong acid and powerful minerality make this lovely.

Riesling Grand Cru Pfersigberg 2005
A pronouced stone character on the nose, with good lime fruit. This has a pleasing harmony between dense favours and elegant acidity. This is a pretty lush bottle.

Pinot Gris 2007
Lychee, rambutan and peaches on the nose. Smells lovely. The palate is quite lively, but there is a good desnity to it. This is really good for a basic Pinot Gris.

Pinot Gris Vieille Vigne 2005
Toasted sesame seed on the nose that bursts with white fruit. Lots of depth here. The palate has plenty of fruity charm and a very pleasing old vines depth of concentration. Lovely++

Pinot Gris Grand Cru Florimont 2005
Ha ha! This smells lovely. Peachy, grapey  fruit that expresses itself in a complex whole. It has a tad of residual sugar, but that is no problem. We are talking top balance with great acidity and creamy minerality.

Pinot Gris Grand Cru Pfersigberg 2005
Lovely nose that is pretty complex. The palate has density of character and a fleshy finish of sweet fruit. This is another deeply pleasing wine.

Gewurztraminer 2006
Liquorice, banana, spice are all present on the nose. Smells quite pleasing for a basic wine. The palate, however, is less of a hit; thin and light with not much of the body you'd expect from a Gewurztraminer.

Gewurztraminer Vieille Vigne 2005
An intense nose of banana action. The palate has better concentration than the last wine, but it is still a bit simple.

Gewurztraminer Grand Cru Pfersigberg 2006
Nice lychee fruit on the nose that suggests you are up for a louche time when you plunge in. The palate has lots of spiciness and lovely fruit that really persists on the finish. Undeniable complexity here. Lovely stuff.

Gewurztraminer Vendange Tardive 2005
An incredibly expressive nose, wonderful, wonderful fruit with some pronounced botrytis character. Bags of style to the nose. The palate bursts with fruit and minerality, with a perfectly balanced sweetness, Great elegance and class, too. Yeah!

Gewurztraminer is one of those grape varieties one either loves or loathes. This is a damned good example that is up for drinking now.

Gewurztraminer Grand Cru Altenbourg "Cuvee Laurence" 2002, Domaine Weinbach
This has a lovely nose of banana fruit and rich spiciness. There is some real earthy complexity here, which raises this wine above the normal Gewurztraminer simplicity. Even though the fruit is very ripe this is no booze-tastic horror; it is perfectly balanced. I love its mineral charm. On the palate the fruit reminds me very much of those foam banana sweets, a wine for those in touch with their youthful-side. The palate is surprisingly, and pleasingly, dry. OK, there is plenty of fruit and a hint of alcohol warmth, but these don't detract from what is a very pleasing palate. This is not a bottle of Zind-Humbrecht tart-fuel as so many people expect from Alsace Gewurzt. There is a real degree of complexity and style here. I admit I don't drink Gewurzt that often, it rarely provides as much pleasure as this,  but I am enjoying this wine greatly. I have simple needs, I am easily satisfied with the best, and this wine is satisfying me no end. I'd drink it within the next few years. The Weinbach ladies are lovely people (bien loché, if I am honest) and they make top bunny wines. Well worth looking out for any of their Grand Cru offerings.

... But, bollocks, I am going to try. This really is the cat's arse, opened to have with pan-fried foie gras

Riesling Grand Cru Schlossberg Vendanges Tardives "Trie Speciale" 2004, Domaine Weinbach
Hell's bells, this has one of the most dense, livid and expressive noses I have ever encountered. I mean, man, it is mind-bendingly good. It has candied citrus fruit, incredible amounts of minerality and simply oozes high class action from every pore. This is the nun's nethers. The complexity and style are mind blowing, but the balance is simply beautiful. The palate? A delight! It is not terribly sweet, but it has mind-buggering quantities of acidity, minerality, extract, flavour and class. It has real density and yet dances across my palate like some schoolboy with an over fondness for flowery shirts. This is quite the most incredible Alsace sweetie I have had in years. I utterly love it, it is a hoopy roller-coaster ride of hallucinogenic drugs as far as mind-altering experiences go. I got the partner a bottle of this for christmas, didn't I do well? Drink now with extraordinary pleasure or age for seven to thirty years.

The wines of Bruno Sorg are great value, always worth a punt when you see them. This is particularly true of this wine and the old vines flavour.

Riesling Grand Cru Pfersigberg 2004, Domaine Bruno Sorg
A lovely nose of baked apples and rich minerality. This smells pretty complex and stylish; it is certainly very mineral. Yum. The palate is very dry, with some weight from the ripeness and some real concentration there. Plenty of acidity is fizzing away on the palate which could have made this very linear, but it is broad enough to be merely direct. Really stylish with great length on the finish. This is really quite delicious, a bargain at fifteen sheets.

Now that is what a call a fine wine. Jean Boxler hits the spot once again even in this difficult vintage

Riesling Grand Cru Sommerberg L31D 2003, Domaine Boxler
The nose explodes with an array of exciting, compelling flavours. There is peachy fruit there, along with fresh redcurrant, it has a rich minerality, and is extraordinarily complex. Yummy, smells good, I rather fancy. The palate has some breadth, but is kept lively by a sharp mineral tang and good acidity. The acid and the fruit persist on the finish to make this a very refreshing drink, despite all of its size and complexity. Tasty stuff. Long, stylish, complex and even tasty, what more could a loony ask for? Excellent.

Last night as I dozed in bed I started thinking about one of my favourite producers: Jean Boxler. As well as being a charming fellow, he has made some of the best wines I've had from Alsace. Right through his range there are wines that both intellectually stimulate and titillate with visceral pleasure. They are not that pricey, either.

I first visited M. Boxler with a group of friends, he was an addition to our list of old favourites in the spirit of trying someone new. This was a terribly good move. We tried the 2000s and a few older wines. Experiencing the vivid, striking nature of those wines for the first time is a memory that will remain with me forever. We tried his basic wines with increasing excitement and then he explained about the different plots of Riesling on the Sommerberg Grand Cru he owned, each of which he vinified separately. The different wines from these plots were noticeably different, and a couple were mind-bendingly good. When these are bottled the only distinction on the label is a cryptic code number on top left-hand corner of the label. If memory serves the codes are: L31JV, L31, L31E, L31D and L31D2. The L31JV is a younger-vines cuvée and is a good buy. I seem to recall L31D2 was only made in the 2002 vintage. The L31E and L31D(2) wines are both made from old vines from different soil types and these are easily among the best wines made in Alsace at the moment. He also makes a Riesling from the Brand Grand Cru.

Even though he is clearly a master of Riesling, his other varietal wines are also delicious. They all have marvellous varietal character, but show a high degree of minerality and complexity. The Pinot Blanc 'B' (from the Brand Grand Cru) is probably the best Pinot Blanc I've ever tried. His Brand Pinot Gris has delicious fruit and a real creamy Alsace character. Normally heady Gewürztraminer is balanced and refined from him, but not short on style and class.

I've reported on a few Boxler wines here, jolly good they were too. Apart from that corked one (curses). If you'd like to try some of these wines I'd suggest visiting and then buying all he will sell you. Alternatively, UK readers can try here for drinking wines, and here for slightly more serious stuff. The 04 L31E will age really well. Overseas readers can search for Boxler on Wine Searcher.

---

PS. I must apologise for the lack on entries recently. I am violently ill and wine makes me blow bits. Quite depressing, really.

Jean-Michel Deiss used to make really good, single-varietal wines in Alsace. Then he appeared to go quite mad and started making blends of different grape varieties; I've hated every one of them I've tried. This is one of the last vintages he made named-vineyard vendanges tardives (late harvest wines), so I hope it is a pleasing view into the past of someone who used to be one of my favourite Alsace producers. This is only 11.5% alcohol.

Riesling Grand Cru Altenberg de Bergheim Vendanges Tardives 1994, Domaine Marcel Deiss
This looks really quite orange and mature. It smells of baked apples, with candied citrus and petrol hints. There is a rich earthiness to it. The nose suggests this is really rather mature. The palate tastes surprisingly dry, but is obviously ripe and powerful even though it seems to lack fruit. There is some good acidity there and minerals show on the finish, but this really isn't terribly complex or long. Simple and short are not features I would have expected from this, but sadly that is what the wine is like. Alas, this just tastes a bit over-mature; not oxidised, but on its way out certainly. How disappointing! I had hoped for an excellent Deiss wine of old and all I got was an old Deiss wine. At least it is not one of his filth blends; one of them would be completely dead by now and taste awful.

Last night I had another bottle of Riesling Grand Cru Rangen 2003 from Zind-Humbrecht. It was bloody awful. So hot and confected it tasted more like child's sweets than a bottle of fine wine. I hated it with a passion. So much so that the bottle still sits in the fridge with only two glasses gone from it; it'll go down the sink shortly.

It has been years since I last tried a wine from this producer. I wonder if he still makes barrique fermented Pinot Blanc and Pinot Gris... Oh dear... I wasn't a fan of them. I always remember this wine being good, though.

Riesling Grand Cru Muenchberg 2002, Domaine Ostertag
It smells of fresh melon and freshly squeezed grapes. It has a good mineral tang to the nose. On the palate there is plenty of fruit, again it is quite melon-y with freshly squeezed table grape flavours. The mid-palate builds some weight which is perfectly balanced by the acidity. The overall impression is of quite a small-scale but certainly beautiful wine. I imagine it would age very well.

Zind-Humbrecht do not hold back when it comes to making large-scale wines. Even in moderate vintages they can be real behemoths. 2003 was incredibly hot all over Europe, so some very ripe wines have been produced. Z-H produced some wines that have been quite terrifying in terms of ripeness.

Riesling Grand Cru Rangen Clos Saint-Urbain 2003, Domaine Zind-Humbrecht
The nose smells very strongly of tropical fruit-flavour chews, really confected. It smells quite hot and alcoholic too, despite only being a claimed 13.5%. Much to my surprise the palate is pretty much dry, lots of sweetness from the alcohol and confected fruit, but not so much sugar there. It is really confected, though, and I found it hard to discern any real terroir characteristics. Most of the class has been roasted out of this. I suppose it is quite a crowd-pleasing drink, but hardly fine Riesling. The price was pretty steep.

Trimbach make some great Rieslings. They don't do malolactic fermentation to soften the acid and ferment them dry so they can be quite austere and rigorous. Given plenty of time in the cellar they can become really charming and lovely. Being a late harvest wine has helped with the charm factor in this wine.

Riesling Cuvée Frédéric Emile Vendanges Tardives 1990, F. E. Trimbach
A lovely, opulent nose of creamy minerality and mature apple fruit. The nose is very complex and suggests the wine is drinking as well now as it is ever going to; good maturity there. The palate has plenty of weight and fat, but is not really that sweet. It has got great acidity, serious length and real complexity. It is very stylish and very lovely. Perfect for drinking now as this is as mature as one could wish for; still in fine fettle. This is really intellectual and exciting, but also full of charm and pleasure. Excellent Riesling.

One of the problems with Zind-Humbrecht wine is that you can never really know before you taste them what they are going to be like. Olivier Humbrecht has stated putting an indication of sweetness on the labels, but so far this seems to be quite a fanciful scale with little grounding in reality. The wines are usually incredibly alcoholic and this, clocking in at 15%, is no different. I've had some very good Zind-Humbrecht wines and I do own a few bottles that are in my cellar, but they can just be a bit tiresome.

Pinot Gris Clos Windsbuhl 2002, Domaine Zind-Humbrecht
Quite a dark yellow colour. The nose has some Pinot Gris spice and white fruit, but it is largely dominated by alcohol. It does smell very hot and cooked. The palate is largely dry, ignoring the sweetness that comes from the alcohol, and does have some Pinot Gris roundness on the palate. However, the finish is simply terrible. It is really hot with alcohol and leaves a lingering burning sensation which is just dreadful. When I first tasted this I thought it was quite a good Zind-Humbrecht wine, but when I swallowed I realised that finishing my glass would be a difficult and draining experience; it was also likely to leave me as 'tired and emotional' as a newt. The finish and balance were woefully poor in this wine, not a good Z-H wine. 

2003 was a crazy year in Europe, so hot. This wine demonstrates the problems with that.

Gewurztraminer Grand Cru Hengst 2003, Domaine Zind-Humbrecht
This honks of raw booze. An incredibly hot and alcoholic nose. What fruit there is is so confected it smells of foam banana sweets. There is no acidity to speak of. The palate has a huge alcohol sweetness which turns to a burn on the finish. It is quite sweet. All of the spice and fruit has been roasted out of the palate. This is hugely out of balance and is not fun to drink. No. To think Olivier Humbrecht made a more alcoholic Gewurztraminer in 2003, the mind boggles.

Another Boxler wine, different vintage this time. Again the L31D refers to a plot of the oldest vines that are harvested very ripe

Riesling Grand Cru Sommerberg L31D 2001, Domaine Albert Boxler
A very stony, mineral nose with plenty of ripe, citric fruit. The nose seems quite linear and intense. There is some fat on the palate, but this wine seems largely to be about minerality and acidity. Not to say there is any lack of fruit, but this is quite a direct style. It is very long, with a creamy minerality and fruity weight finishing it off. Is this as good as the stunning 2002? Probably in the same league, but a slightly different style. Undoubtedly a fine wine and a lovely drink. I do like this very much.

Another bottle of Boxler Sommerberg L31E 2002. This is a really beautiful, powerful yet balanced wine. The fruit is superb, as is the acidity and minerality. Really top bunny. I look forward to trying the rest of my partner's stash in many years time.

I just felt in need of beauty tonight.

Riesling Brauneberger-Juffer Sonnenuhr Auslese Goldkapsel Fuder 9 1994, Fritz Haag
A beautiful nose of botrytis, slate and petrol. The nose is quite developed. The palate has really quite a lot of acidity, but is balanced by plenty of ripeness and fruit. It is very long and speaks of where it was grown. A seriously lovely wine.

Riesling Cuvée Frédéric-Emile 1990, Trimbach
This started off being surprisingly closed. However, it opened up to reveal plenty of limy fruit on the nose along with a creamy minerality. The palate was very long and complex, with austere lime fruit, earthy richness and an almost toasty finish. Very good, once it had opened up.

Tonight's wine comes from a genius when he was at the height of his powers; as opposed to now when he produces filth.

Riesling Grand Cru Schoenenbourg 1993, Domaine Marcel Deiss
This has a beautiful, exotic nose of passion fruit, mango, lime and earth. It is quite a German-style Riesling nose. The palate is wonderfully balanced and precise, and almost totally dry unlike his more recent offerings. This acidity is strong but perfectly balanced. The palate of this wine is like Michelangelo's David: beautifully sculpted, elegant, yet quite masculine. There is plenty of fruit, the finish is very long and it really speaks of where it was grown. This is a fabulous wine. Why, Jean-Michel Deiss, did you start making atrocious monstrosities rather than beauties like this?

Jean Boxler hits the spot once again with a brilliant wine. The mystic code refers to the plot of the Sommerberg Grand Cru that this wine is made from.

Riesling Grand Cru Sommerberg L31E 2002, Domaine Albert Boxler
The nose is incredibly stony but has a lot of ripe fruit; grapefruit and pineapple. The mineral character is carried through on the palate, which is very concentrated and dense yet balanced by a fine acidity. Although this is full-bodied and weighty, it is completely dry. The ripe fruit stands out on the finish, which is long with fine acidity and minerality. This is a deeply lovely wine from a Riesling master that will age exceptionally well. Quite stunning in its complexity and style. I love it.

I swore that if I purchased any 2003 European white wines (after my disaster with buying German stuff) I should be mercilessly mocked. So, stick a dunce's cap on me and stand me in the corner because today's glass of wine with the cricket was:

Domaine Albert Boxler Riesling Grand Cru Sommerberg L31D 2003
Jean Boxler is a charming and gifted young man. He can also do things with Riesling that would make your eyes water with pleasure. He vinifies each plot of the Grand Cru Sommerberg Riesling separately and produces a range of wines that are all recognisably Sommerberg, but all have an individual charm and character. The L31D is the cuvée from his oldest vines. Obviously 2003 was far too hot for serious white wines to be generally made, but M. Boxler did make damned good stuff. This is a bit hot and alcoholic (best drank out of the fridge) but the fruit, concentration, complexity and style make this one exciting, racy, booze-tastic drink. I really enjoyed it. There was acidity and mam-loads of minerality. This was a seriously glass of quite large-scale Riesling. Cheers, Jean.

Obviously, Riesling is best with cricket; Champagne or Fino Sherry will do at a pinch.

Finally, you can point at me in my corner and shout "Shame!" as I purchased two cases of 2003 wine from M. Boxler.