Marcel Deiss Altenberg 2000 Grand Cru Alsace

Wonderfully Unfashionable.

This wine has everything that I love in a great wine. Its aromas are complex with dried apricot, chalky minerality, hazelnut, and yellow roses. The palate is rich, mouth filling, and layered. The finish is long with both acidity and fine tannins lingering.

While these are wonderful attributes, they alone are not the reason why this wine is a Mentor wine. I’m inspired by the determination and relentless terroir respect of a winegrowing family who stays their own course regardless of changing consumer stylistic preferences.

This Altenberg is a sweet, aged, blended white wine.

Sweet wines have become decidedly unfashionable. This is puzzling given our culinary trends towards more exotic, powerfully seasoned cuisines. How many dry wines would pair well with orange braised parsnips with cumin and mint?

A whole generation is missing out on what aging can do for a well-crafted white wine. Texture and complexity can only come with age. This wine was worth the wait.

Blending grape varieties can produce a wine with more balance and interest than many varietal wines. This is a winemaker’s art. But the Deiss family lets the vineyard do the blending. This is a field blend meaning that many varieties were planted on the site and all are harvested together. The ancestors decided on the blend years ago.

The anachronistic label alerts us that this wine is different. It is a wine made with an independent intention for those of us who are not slaves to fashion.

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