Berserkers,
It’s been ages since I’ve had a Marcel Deiss. The LCBO brought in his famous Cru field blends once many years ago at very affordable prices. Since that time, both his reputation and the price of his wines have gone up considerably but I still had a bottle of the 2011 Huebuhl waiting to be opened and I finally did and shared it with friends in my social bubble. Let’s see how it’s holding up:
MARCEL DEISS 2001 HUEBUHL
SUMMARY: A sweet and very floral Alsacian “table wine” that is actually a dessert wine with late harvest sweetness and superb texture. Chill well and serve after the meal, not with it.
A deep burnished gold in the glass. Gorgeous color. Nose is all blossomed honey. On the palate, surprisingly strong sweet flavors of orange blossom honey, honeydew melon, cardamom spice and ginger are a dead giveaway of the Pinot Gris in the base but on the finish a bright tangy acidity shows up followed by a lingering heat. It’s so sweet that literally upon first sip fellow board member Mike Grammer whom I shared this with immediately exclaimed “This isn’t a table wine, it’s a dessert wine!” And he’s absolutely right about that. This blend is known for its botrytis influence and I’ve had a previous vintage that was off-dry but still a table wine. This, however, was all the way into sweet wine territory. Superb texture that goes down smoothly like glycerin.
This is absolutely delicious but has no business parading around as a table wine. While I could see this possibly going with spicy Thai food or a rich Alsacian choucroute, I really wouldn’t recommend this in general with a meal and advise you to drink it like a late harvest wine and have it with dessert after the main course. It also really needs a good chill. We drank it a little warmer than it should be when we first opened it and that only magnified the sweetness. It was much better to me the next day thanks to getting some air and a lot more chill into it.
A little info about this wine. Marcel Deiss is famous as the only Alsacian producer to produce blended wines in the region. A revered (some would say more like tolerated) maverick in his field, he mixed the Alsacian grapes growing in his fields by co-planting them and self-declaring them as “Premier Crus” when he became disenchanted with the Alsace Grand Cru system and its overly generous labeling. (There is no such actual thing as a Premier Cru designation in Alsace. A Dieu-Lit is probably the closest equivalent). Then he vinified and blended the grapes co-planted together in his fields and named his Premier Cru wines after those fields. All of this is technically illegal in Alsace and he’s been battling the Alsacian wine authorities ever since all the while garnering deserved acclaim for both Alsace wine in general and his wines in particular.
The Huebuhl field is grown organically and biodynamically as are all his other fields. It’s located in a small hollow slope in between his Gruenspiel and Rotenberg fields. This location actively encourages botrytis growth every year. The blend is of the three Pinot grapes – Blanc, Noir and Gris.