Altenberg de Bergheim grand cru 2010 - Marcel Deiss

Altenberg de Bergheim grand cru 2010

Domaine Marcel Deiss - Alsace Grand cru - White

Impressive color of density and liquor, chocolate reflections, sunset and molten metal. A nose of red wine (!), dense and saturating, sap and cedar releasing little by little, clearing up on melon, peach and tangerine, candied lemon, honey finally. Glorious aromatic finish on ginger. Devastatingly liqueur-like mouthfeel, incredibly powerful in the attack, rolling down the hillside in a tangy torrent, coiling on the palate in deafening music and then, in the heart of the storm, unfolding in fruity and candied waves, in cocoa tears. The finish is long and undulating like a river; waiting for the beloved. A monument.

Without doubt, the most concentrated Altenberg since the beginning of this adventure, paradoxically the one where acidity plays its most central role.  The birthmark of Heaven on the infinite baroque music of the Altenberg!

A HISTORY.

The first Grand Terroir in Alsace (of the modern era), which in 2005 saw the recognition of its specific typicity, its particular production conditions, the diversity of its grape varieties (all the AOC Alsace grape varieties used in precise proportions) and the richness of its harvest, in the service of an unparalleled regularity.

The return to the ancestral practice of the vineyard planted with all the traditional grape varieties and of the single unsorted harvest, opens the Pandora's box of the "Great Wine" at Altenberg: the Terroir becomes the conductor who controls and inspires in all the ranges of the performers (rootstocks and grape varieties, all the conditions of the vintage and even the winemaker! ) in the service of a unique score: the pure expression of the Terroir, the balanced symphony of the Great Wine.

This wine of synthesis thus revives the old Alsatian tradition of wines for ageing and travelling which, throughout the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and until the end of the 13th century, made possible the gigantic Rhine cultural effort of which modern Alsace is the result.

A CLIMATE.

This majestic terroir is located in the heart of a geological fault field that brings together hard Jurassic limestone and Lias marl. These formations, rich in fossils, have formed a poor clay-limestone soil, red (ferruginous), rich in limestone rocks where the vine must dive deep to find its energy. The microclimate of Altenberg, the result of its southern exposure, its distance from the Vosges front and its isolation from the Rhine plain, is terribly hot, dry and almost overexposed. The ripeness of the grapes, frequently amplified by the Noble Rot, is out of the ordinary and imposes the domination of the Terroir on the planted grape varieties.

Tasted in the dark: Mental landscape: initially dark, defensive: there is black, fruity flashes, a cloud of zest. Then opens up to gold, amber, candied fruits, quince paste from the Altenberg.

Mouthfeel: the gourmet "work" reserves beautiful emotions in the dark! A sensational wine, in the etymological sense of the term: a seductive attack, broad but fruity, a torrent of saline sensations, making the tongue "sharp", dry... then the fatness, the nappant, making the palate salivate laterally, digging the mouth into a chalice, becoming deep, caressing, sensual. There is everything in this wine: the vertical saline finesse of the sandstone, the sharp sap of the limestone zest, the width and above all the thickness of the clays built in sheets like a book, a Bible. The persistence is indescribable, immense, heady, salivating, petulant. I swallow almost a quarter of an hour...

The port or energy: light, airy, fine and yet insistent like a great book, a metaphysical experience, a crucial encounter... the loved one.

> All our Marcel Deiss wines in stock