Alsace (wine region)
The Alsace ( fr. Alsace) is a wine-growing region with AOC status in eastern France . Mainly white wines are produced from the grape varieties Riesling , Pinot Blanc , Gewürztraminer and Muscat . Most wines are made single-variety .
- The Edelzwicker is a blend of at least two grape varieties.
- The Crémant d'Alsace is a sparkling wine.
- The Pinot noir is the basis of the only red wine or rosé in the region.
- The sale of wine in barrel is prohibited in Alsace . When it is sold, the wine has to be filled in bottles, which are narrow and high here. The bottles are known as flûte (flute) because of their shape .
The Alsatian Wine Queen has been determined annually since 1954 . Their position is unique in France, as there are currently no other regional or national wine queens there. The choice of a Reine des vins de France is only proven for the 1930s .
Appellations
The AOC status was awarded to Alsace in 1945 and has been supplemented and modified several times since then.
The following terms exist:
- The AOC Vin d'Alsace or Alsace , supplemented by the name of the grape variety or Edelzwicker . A layer designation is not provided here.
- The AOC Alsace Grand Cru with site name and grape variety. Only Riesling, Gewürztraminer, Pinot Gris and Nutmeg are permitted. The AOC Alsace Grand Cru was issued in 1975, but only introduced in 1983 with the first 25 layers. In 1992 more locations were named. Since then there have been 50 individual layers that have Grand Cru status .
- The AOC Crémant d'Alsace . Crémants have been allowed to bear this name since 1976 . Sparkling wine using the champagne method was already produced in the 19th century. Pinot blanc and pinot gris usually serve as the basis for the sparkling wines . Other permitted varieties are Auxerrois , Chardonnay (only permitted for sparkling wine), Riesling and Pinot noir (as Blanc de Noirs ).
- The AOC Klevener de Heiligenstein , which is exclusively dedicated to the rare Klevener grape variety and is grown in a small area around the municipality of Heiligenstein .
Since December 1999, corresponding wines have been allowed to carry the addition of vendanges tardives (roughly equivalent to a late harvest ) or sélection de grains nobles (equivalent to a selection of berries ) if they meet the strict requirements (manual picking, minimum sugar or Öchsle, Gewürztraminer, Pinot gris, Riesling or Muscat) suffice.
Vin de paille ( straw wine ) and vin de glace ( ice wine ) are also produced in small quantities .
geography
The wine-growing region stretches from north to south of Alsace over a length of approx. 100 km. The area lies at the foot of the eastern flank of the Vosges . The total area under cultivation is 14,500 ha, which is spread over 119 communes between Strasbourg (department Bas-Rhin) and Mulhouse (department Haut-Rhin), with the area northwest of Colmar enjoying the best reputation. The strip with the vineyards is only 1.5 to max. 3 km wide. The entire area is crossed in a south-north direction by an approx. 110 km long wine route, the Route des Vins d'Alsace .
There is also viticulture on the northern edge of Alsace around Wissembourg and Cleebourg .
Route des Vins d'Alsace - The Wine Route
The Alsatian Wine Route , established in 1953, touches 67 of the 119 Alsatian wine-growing communities with more than 300 wineries and 48 of the 50 Grand Cru individual locations over a length of 170 km in a north-south direction. It runs through the departments of Bas-Rhin and Haut-Rhin .
In Colmar there is a viticulture school and the viticulture institute L'institut viticole Oberlin . Both ensure the constant development of viticulture technology in Alsace.
Climate and soil
Since the wine-growing region lies on the east side of the Vosges, it is climatically favored. The prevailing westerly wind rains down on the western flank and reaches the Rhine plain as a dry, warm fall wind . The average rainfall is the lowest of all French wine-growing regions and the mean annual temperature is around 1.5 ° C higher than one would assume based on the geographical latitude.
The soil changes very frequently in the structure. Depending on the location, it is made up of the following rocks:
primary rock soils made of granite , gneiss or slate,
sedimentary rock soils made of lime , marl and sandstone .
The Grands Crus are mainly based on marl or granite.
history
Wine-growing in Alsace was probably already practiced by the Celts in pre-Roman times . Under Roman rule it experienced a heyday that ended with the invasion of the Teutons in the 5th century. Viticulture only experienced a new rise under the influence of the monastic orders . Documents from the 9th century already show that wine was grown in more than 160 locations. In the 16th century, wine was grown on an area around twice as large as today. Numerous buildings still preserved from the Renaissance period bear witness to this heyday. A first approach for a kind of AOC can already be seen from this time . At that time, a winegrowing association from Riquewihr set a harvest time and determined the grape varieties to be planted.
The Thirty Years' War puts an end to this high time and brings war, hunger and the plague over the country. Practically all vineyards were destroyed. After the end of the war, viticulture recovered and the area under cultivation increased to over 30,000 hectares in 1828. Under the influence of phylloxera and vine diseases such as powdery mildew , inexpensive rail transport and the increasing consumption of beer, viticulture was only 9,500 hectares , of which 7,500 in today's appellation, fell to a low.
Centuries of German influence resulted in a completely different form of wine culture in Alsace than in the rest of France. This is particularly noticeable in the production and grape varieties.
Winemaking
The average annual production in Alsace is around 1.15 million hl (150 million bottles), 90% of which are white wines. In 2008 the harvest amounted to around 1,131,500 hectoliters. 837,700 hl of this was accounted for by the AOC Alsace , 45,000 hl by the AOC Alsace Grand Cru and 248,800 hl by the AOC Crémant d'Alsace .
Grape varieties and wines
Slightly more than 90% of the 15,535 hectares of vineyards in Alsace are used to cultivate white grape varieties and predominantly single-variety.
The seven permitted Alsatian grape varieties are:
- Riesling : 247,954 hl, 21.7% of the vineyard area
- Gewürztraminer : 172,116 hl, 18.6% of the vineyard area
- Sylvaner : 108,268 hl, 8.9% of the vineyard area
- Pinot Blanc : 267,672 hl, 21.2% of the vineyard area
- Pinot gris (also called Tokay Pinot gris or Tokay d'Alsace ): 165,954 hl, 15.2% of the vineyard area
- Muscat d'Alsace : 18,487 hl, 2.3% of the area under vines
- Pinot Noir (as red and rosé wine): 108,326 hl, 9.6% of the vineyard area
In addition, Chasselas (6.271 hl, 0.6% of the vineyard), Chardonnay and savagnin Rose grown (2.662 hl). The quantities given relate to the 2008 wine year.
Grands Crus from Alsace
The authorities have only classified these vineyards as Alsace Grand Cru since 1975. Only the grape varieties Riesling, Gewürztraminer, Muscat and Pinot Gris are permitted. The maximum yield is 70 hl / ha. This value is exceptionally high when you consider that e.g. B. a Premier Cru from Burgundy is limited to 30 hl / ha. A total of 51 locations in 47 locations are permitted. Their vineyards range between 3 and 80 hectares and occupy a total of 1680 hectares.
See also
- Alsace Grand Cru with list of vineyards
- Black Oberlin
literature
- Jancis Robinson : The Oxford Wine Lexicon, 3rd revised edition . 1st edition. Gräfe and Unzer Verlag, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-8338-0691-9 .
- Pierre Galet : Cépages et Vignobles de France (French language) . 1st edition. Lavoisier publishing house, 2004, ISBN 2-7430-0585-8 .
- Benoît France: Grand Atlas des Vignobles de France (French language) . 1st edition. Éditions SOLAR, 2002, ISBN 2-263-03242-8 .
- Rudolf Michna: Alsatian viticulture under international competitive pressure. The recent structural change in the Alsatian wine industry. In: Regio Basiliensis . tape 48 , H. 3, 2007, pp. 203-215 .
Web links
- Information page of the Alsatian Wine Association (CIVA) (German)
- Alsatian wines - France's official website (english)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Une reine et un président pour la fête des Vins de France. ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: angers.fr , December 2008 (French).
