Alsace Wine - Wine Styles

Wine Styles

Almost all wines are white, except those made from the Pinot Noir grape which are pale red, often rosé, rarely red (e.g. Rouge d'Ottrott (fr)). Sparkling wines known as Crémant d'Alsace are also made. Much of the white wines of Alsace are made from aromatic grape varieties, so many characteristic Alsace wines are aromatic, floral and spicy. Since they very seldom have any oak barrel aromas they tend to be very varietally pure in their character. Traditionally all Alsace wines were dry (which once set them apart from German wines with which they share many grape varieties), but an ambition to produce wines with more intense and fruity character has led some producers to produce wines which contain some residual sugar. Since there is no official labelling that differentiates completely dry from off-dry (or even semi-sweet) wines, this has occasionally led to some confusion among consumers. It is more common to find residual sugar in Gewürztraminer and Pinot Gris, which reach a higher natural sugar content on ripeness, than in Riesling, Muscat or Sylvaner. Usually there is a "house style" as to residual sugar, i.e., some producers only produce totally dry wines, except for their dessert style wines.

Almost all production in Alsace is of AOC wine, since there is no Vin de pays region which covers Alsace. Thus, the only alternative to producing AOC wine is to declassify it all the way down to Vin de table, which generally means that neither grape varieties, region of origin or vintage may be identified. However, this solution is mostly avoided since edelzwicker and gentil may be blended from several varieties, i.e. varieties that exceed the AOC rules in the concerned season.