2010 Hugel Pinot Gris Grossi Laue, Alsace

Another debut vintage and the best dry Pinot Gris from Alsace I’ve tasted in years. The freshness and brilliance of the wine is almost Riesling like, but this aspect of the wine hasn’t been won at the cost of textural richness or ripe aromas (melon, floral honey and blossoms). This is a seriously concentrated wine, but you’d never guess that it had 15% alcohol because of its super-elegant acidity. The silky finish is very long and perfectly balanced. With such astonishing freshness, it could possibly age way longer than Pinot Gris normally does. This comes from the Pflostig site of Riquewihr that has a limestone soil with some weathered granite in the top soil eroded from neighboring hills. About a quarter of the wine was barrel-fermented in used barriques and that part did malolactic fermentation, unlike the main part that was fermented in large neutral oak.

95 points James Suckling jamessuckling.com