{"title":"Alsace","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe Alsace wine region is located in northeastern France and is known for producing aromatic white wines. The region benefits from a cool climate with a combination of continental and maritime influences, allowing for the cultivation of grape varieties like Riesling, Gewürztraminer, and Pinot Gris. Pinot Noir has also been making major strides in this border region.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"domaine-ostertag-pinot-gris-zellberg-2021","title":"Domaine Ostertag Pinot Gris Zellberg 2021","description":"","brand":"Stelvio","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47164373696735,"sku":null,"price":55.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0439\/7436\/1248\/files\/PB250321.jpg?v=1764137711"},{"product_id":"domaine-ostertag-the-new-chapter-2023","title":"Domaine Ostertag \"The New Chapter\" 2023","description":"","brand":"Stelvio","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48358379585759,"sku":null,"price":52.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0439\/7436\/1248\/files\/P1100605.jpg?v=1768101080"},{"product_id":"domaine-weinbach-riesling-cuvee-colette-2022","title":"Domaine Weinbach Riesling Cuvée Colette 2022","description":"","brand":"Classic","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48402531254495,"sku":null,"price":65.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0439\/7436\/1248\/files\/P1280718.jpg?v=1769662876"},{"product_id":"domaine-weinbach-sylvaner-2023","title":"Domaine Weinbach Sylvaner 2023","description":"","brand":"Classic","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48402541052127,"sku":null,"price":39.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0439\/7436\/1248\/files\/P1280717.jpg?v=1769662839"},{"product_id":"boxler-pinot-gris-reserve-2021","title":"Albert Boxler Pinot Gris Reserve 2021","description":"","brand":"Empire","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49023926796511,"sku":null,"price":55.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0439\/7436\/1248\/files\/P4250080_179de18f-51cc-4dd6-b837-68a8e64a780c.jpg?v=1777158552"},{"product_id":"sophie-schaal-pinot-noir-2024","title":"Sophie Schaal Pinot Noir 2024","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Land\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSophie Schaal is based in Hunawihr, one of the pretty hilltop villages between Ribeauvillé and Riquewihr in the heart of Alsace. This is limestone and clay country in the foothills of the Vosges, whose rain shadow makes Alsace one of the driest, sunniest corners of France. Pinot Noir is the only red grape permitted in AOC Alsace, and on these cool, calcareous soils it takes on a Burgundian cast: red and dark fruit with acidity and lift rather than heat. The combination of limestone and a long, dry ripening season is exactly what gives serious Alsace Pinot Noir its structure.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Wine\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e100% Pinot Noir, farmed organically and made in a clean, precise style with little to no new oak. It shows darker fruit than you usually expect from a Pinot at this price: black cherry and plum alongside brighter raspberry, a touch of gentle spice, and a fresh, unforced finish. Light to medium in body, with the clarity you would expect from a Burgundy-trained oenologist. This is a lot of wine for the money, the sort of everyday Pinot Noir that overdelivers. The 2024 vintage was cool and wet across Alsace, which pushed reds toward a fresher, lighter frame with vivid acidity, and this wine wears that style well.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe People\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSophie Schaal was born in Burgundy and earned her national oenology diploma in Dijon, a background that shows in the precision of her wines. A 2013 trip to South Africa changed everything: it broadened her sense of terroir and it is where she met Julien Schaal, an Alsatian winemaker working in the Cape. Married now, the couple splits time between Alsace and South Africa. Sophie farms organically in Alsace, a decision she describes as coming naturally as a producer and a mother focused on long-term vineyard health. Her range covers Riesling, Pinot Gris, and this Pinot Noir.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFood Pairing\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAn easy, versatile red. Roast chicken with thyme, duck breast with a cherry pan sauce, a mushroom and gruyère tart, or a board of charcuterie and soft cheeses. It also handles grilled salmon and tuna, especially with a light chill on a warm evening. Fresh acidity and modest tannin make it a friendly partner across a wide range of dishes.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Old World","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50572321063135,"sku":null,"price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0439\/7436\/1248\/files\/P7160694.jpg?v=1784262521"},{"product_id":"kuentz-bas-alsace-blanc-2025","title":"Kuentz-Bas Alsace Blanc 2025","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Land\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAlsace looks German on the map and half German on the label, but it is one of the driest, sunniest wine regions in France, sheltered in the rain shadow of the Vosges mountains. Kuentz-Bas farms around Husseren-les-Chateaux, one of the highest villages on the Alsace Wine Route, where cooler elevation stretches out the growing season and preserves acidity. The vineyards sit on a patchwork of limestone, silt, and loess soils that suit Alsace's many white grapes, and the altitude keeps the wines fresh even in warm years. This is a serious white-wine terroir hiding behind a tall, tapered bottle.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Wine\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA traditional Alsace field blend of six varieties: Sylvaner, Pinot Blanc, Riesling, Muscat, Pinot Gris, and Gewurztraminer, with the exact proportions shifting by vintage. The fruit comes from certified organic and biodynamic vines aged 25 to 45 years, and the blend is fermented and aged in century-old oak foudres, large neutral casks that add texture without any oak flavor. It finishes just barely off-dry, which rounds out the palate without reading as sweet. Expect a heady, perfumed nose of orchard fruit, white flowers, peach, and candied citrus, with gentle spice and a soft, comforting texture. It is the kind of aromatic white that surprises people who think they only like bone-dry wine.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe People\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eKuentz-Bas was founded in 1795 by the Kuentz family and took its current form in 1895, when a marriage joined the Kuentz and Bas families. Since 2004 the estate has been led by Jean-Baptiste Adam, who converted the vineyards to certified organic farming in 2007 and biodynamic in 2008. The domaine sits among the highest-altitude vineyards in Alsace and works its old vines by hand, aiming for aromatic clarity and freshness rather than power. This entry blend is the house's calling card, a snapshot of what a full range of Alsace varieties tastes like in one glass.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFood Pairing\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAromatic and versatile, this is a natural for spiced and savory food. Pour it with a tarte flambee, choucroute garnie, roast pork with apples, or Thai green curry. Its off-dry roundness tames chili heat and cuts through rich, fatty dishes, while the acidity keeps it lively next to charcuterie or a wedge of washed-rind Munster. It is one of the most food-flexible whites you can keep in the fridge.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Empire","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50578648400095,"sku":null,"price":19.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0439\/7436\/1248\/files\/P7250768.jpg?v=1785129025"},{"product_id":"hugel-gewurztraminer-2023","title":"Hugel Gewurztraminer 2023","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Land\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAlsace sits in the rain shadow of the Vosges, and the effect is not subtle. Colmar, twenty kilometers from a crest that tops out at 1,424 meters, gets roughly a quarter of the precipitation that falls on the ridge above it, somewhere between 500 and 600 mm a year, which makes this one of the driest wine regions in France. The climate is semi-continental: cold winters, hot dry summers, a long slow ripening season. Hugel's home is Riquewihr, and the Classic bottling draws on a dozen favored sites in and around the village, planted on clay and limestone. Riquewihr's two grand crus, Schoenenbourg and Sporen, run from 265 to 380 meters, and Sporen's heavy Jurassic clay-marl is the Gewurztraminer ground here.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Wine\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e100% Gewurztraminer from vines averaging 46 years, hand-harvested on 18 September 2023 at 49 hectoliters per hectare. Fruit goes to the press in small tubs and fills by gravity with no pumping; fermentation runs at 18 to 24 degrees Celsius, the wine is racked once, clarifies naturally over the winter, and is bottled the following spring under DIAM. It finishes at 14.24% alcohol with 13.1 g\/L residual sugar against 5.16 g\/L tartaric acidity, which reads as barely off-dry rather than sweet. Rose and jasmine first, then peach and mirabelle, then lychee, mango, dragon fruit. 2023 was a drought year in Alsace: almost no rain between 18 April and 23 July, immaculate fruit health as a result, and yields cut hard, Riesling worst of all.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe People\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Hugels arrived in Riquewihr in 1639, when Hans Ulrich Hugel came south from Switzerland during the Thirty Years' War. Twelve generations later the family still works from the house on the main square it moved into in 1902, farming 30 hectares of its own, more than half grand cru, and contracting roughly 110 more. Jean \"Johnny\" Hugel spent three years walking the region with a geologist to help draw the grand cru boundaries, then drafted the late-harvest regulations that became French law in 1984 and are still called Hugel's Law. He also declined to put the words Grand Cru on his own labels, judging the classification too generous. The family's own vineyards were certified organic in 2025, after this harvest; the Classic leans on contracted growers, so read that certification as direction of travel rather than a claim about this bottle.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFood Pairing\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHugel points this at spicy Asian cooking, smoked salmon, and strong cheese, and all three land. A Thai green curry heavy on lemongrass and ginger, smoked salmon with creme fraiche and dill on dark rye, a ripe washed-rind Munster eaten the Alsatian way with caraway seeds, or pork belly braised slowly with apples and onions. Gewurztraminer's weight and low acidity mean it does not fight chili heat the way a taut Riesling does; the trace of sugar absorbs it instead. This is the bottle for the night when takeout beats whatever you were planning to cook.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Southern","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50917480366303,"sku":null,"price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0439\/7436\/1248\/files\/P8060035.jpg?v=1786064823"},{"product_id":"barmes-buecher-cremant-dalsace-brut-zero-2023","title":"Barmes-Buecher Cremant d'Alsace Brut Zero 2023","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Land\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCrémant d'Alsace is the most-produced crémant in France, and most of it is made as an afterthought from fruit that did not make the cut for still wine. Barmès-Buecher treats it as a wine in its own right. The domaine is based in Wettolsheim, just southwest of Colmar and next to Eguisheim, at the foot of the Vosges foothills where the rain shadow makes this one of the driest corners of France. Its 18 hectares run across a genuine spread of geology: clay-limestone and marl-sandstone on the Wettolsheim hillsides, granite higher up, and sandy, silty alluvial ground out on the plains toward Turckheim and Colmar. The plain sites ripen earlier and hold acidity, which is precisely what a zero-dosage sparkling wine needs, while the clay-limestone slopes contribute the structure.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Wine\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe 2023 is 48% Pinot Gris, 36% Pinot Auxerrois and 16% Chardonnay, a Pinot Gris-led blend that is unusual for the appellation and gives the wine more flesh than the Pinot Blanc formulas most houses use. Whole bunches are picked at full maturity and pressed slowly over about ten hours. The first fermentation runs on indigenous yeasts in stainless steel and is stopped cold, then the second fermentation happens naturally in bottle. The wine spends roughly seven months in tank and eighteen months sur lattes before disgorgement. Brut Zéro is literal: no chaptalization of the must, none of the base wine, and no dosage at disgorgement, with residual sugar under 2 grams per liter. Lemon oil, white peach, hawthorn blossom and a chalky, almost bitter-almond finish. The 2023 season was four seasons in one, a bone-dry first quarter with 16.5mm of rain, the second-hottest June since 1931, then August showers and the hottest September since 1947.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe People\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Barmès and Buecher families have grown grapes in Wettolsheim since the 17th century, and the estate's name joins the two lines. It converted to biodynamics in the late 1990s and holds Biodyvin certification, granted in 2001, which puts it among the earliest converts in Alsace. Maxime Barmès now runs the vineyard work day to day alongside his sister Sophie, and the approach is parcel-specific rather than recipe-driven, with each site worked according to what it needs. The reason the Crémant can carry zero dosage at all is agricultural, not technical: fruit farmed this way arrives ripe enough that sugar is not required to make the wine taste complete.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFood Pairing\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eZero dosage means this drinks bone dry, so it handles salt and fat better than most sparkling wine. Start with a tarte flambée, the Alsatian version with fromage blanc, bacon and onion, straight out of a hot oven. Oysters with a shallot mignonette work on the salinity. Fried smelt or whitebait with lemon is the bar-snack answer, where the acidity cuts the fryer oil clean. For a real meal, roast pork loin with mustard and braised cabbage pulls on the Pinot Gris weight in the blend. Keep a bottle in the fridge door and it becomes what you open while deciding what to cook.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Old World","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67575130456287,"sku":null,"price":38.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0439\/7436\/1248\/files\/P9270423.jpg?v=1790548337"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0439\/7436\/1248\/collections\/drcmontrachet_realistic_photograph_of_vineyards_in_alsace_sho_df017ffe-49bb-4795-ba3c-228be2be20f6_2.png?v=1737407604","url":"https:\/\/danverwinemerchant.com\/collections\/alsace.oembed","provider":"Denver Wine Merchant","version":"1.0","type":"link"}