Alsace Wine Region, France

Facts about the Wines from Alsace

Alsace wines, which are also called as ‘Alsatian wines’, are the wines that are produced in Alsace, France.

Many of you might have heard about the wines from the Alsace region of France and some of you might have even tasted it.

If you have had a chance to taste the Alsace wines, then I am sure that you would have loved it.

Alsace Wines have Germanic Influence

Yes, the Alsace region, which forms the border between France and Germany, has a Germanic influence in its wines too.

You can note this influence have reflected in the appellation too.

As per the appellation for wine production in the Alsace region of France, this region is producing more of varietals labelled wines.

And, we could even say that this is the only appellation which has more of varietals labelled wines.

It would be surprising for the wine lovers to know that the grape varieties that are used for the Alsace wine production would be more or less similar to those varieties used in German wines.

You could try your Favorite Riesling “Dry”

Several of the wine lovers around the world might have become a fan of Riesling by now.

For those who love Riesling, I could say that there is not only the sweet Riesling to try. You are having an option of dry Riesling too!

Although it’s easy for you to get the sweet Riesling wine varieties all around the globe, I would say it is worth trying the dry Rieslings as they could change your perception of conventional sweet Rieslings.

Most Alsace Wines from Aromatic and White

Although all the wine varieties like red, rosé, white, and sparkling wines are being produced by this wine region of France, a vast majority is white.

We could say that almost all the wines produced here are white, except for those varieties that are made from the grape variety ‘Pinot noir’.

As most of the white wines from the Alsace region are produced using aromatic grape varieties, a majority of Alsace white wines will be aromatic.

Also, we could rarely find the oak barrel aromas in Alsace white wines and hence, most of the Alsace whites are found to have varietals pure characters.

All Alsace Wines were “Dry”

When I conducted some research about the traditional wines from the Alsace wine region, I could understand that all the wines from this region were traditionally dry.

And, this is the reason why Alsace wines were distinguished from the German wines in the ancient times.

As a result of the attempts made by the wine producers in Alsace to get more intense wines with strong fruity flavours, we got the sweet varieties which are currently available.

The sweet wines from Alsace would contain some amount of residual sugar.

Even now, we will not be able to find any official labelling that distinguishes completely dry wine from semi-sweet wine in the Alsace region.

In general, we could find residual sugar content most often in ‘Gewürztraminer’ and ‘Pinot gris’.

All Alsace Wines are AOCs?

We could say that this is partly correct as we could find no ‘Vin de pays’ region in Alsace.

This demands the whole Alsace region to produce AOC wines.

For the producers who are not willing to produce AOC wines, the only alternate option will be declassifying them down to ‘Vin de table’, in which grape variety, region, or vintage will not be labelled.

However, this option is mostly avoided by the Alsace winemakers.

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