CASE PRICE = $20.99 per bottle (add 12+ quantity to your basket)
Notes From The Winemaker:
It really was mentally difficult to follow up 2008 and 2007, two of our greatest Gewurztraminer vintages in the history of our estate. Gewurztraminer is a curious grape variety, because it needs lots of sunshine and heat to complete perfect physiological ripeness, but then needs to grow slowly in order to acquire complex flavours. All this seems contradictory, except in Alsace! Surely 2009 offered perfect ripening conditions, almost too good as sugars could rise quickly. For us, the profile of the vintage was very favourable to Gewurztraminer, however, in some vineyards, excessive sweetness could be wrong as acids were lower. 2009 was a record breaking vintage in Alsace for the production of late harvest wines, but we felt that in some vineyards harvesting too late would bring out the worst of this grape: heavy cloying style. This wine comes partly from the Herrenweg vineyard and also from Wintzenheim. It was clearly a wine that was constructed and blended in order to achieve a certain style.
Bottling date: 9/2010
Alcohol: 14° alc
Residual sweetness: 5 g/l
3.5 g/l H2SO4
pH: 3.7
Yields: 65 hl/ha
Optimum drinking period: 2010-2008
Average age of the vines: 31 years
Terroir: gravely soil on valley floor, marl limestone
Indice 1
3000 cases produced
Ratings & Reviews
Rank #67 Top 100 of 2011 & 92 Points - Wine Spectator Magazine:"Crackling acidity sets up this dry, aromatic version, with layered flavors of lychee, fleur de sel, orange peel and smoke, joined by a hint of cantaloupe. Finely meshed, building in intensity toward the minerally finish, with lots of lingering white pepper notes. The L170 in small print in the lower left corner of the label distinguishes this from the otherwise identical label of the L17M. Drink now through 2024. 3,000 cases made." –AN (Oct 2011)
90 Points - Robert Parker's Wine Advocate:"The Zind-Humbrecht 2009 Gewurztraminer L17O (along with its modestly sweet counterpart L17N) incorporates most of this year-s crop from the Herrenweg; the entire crop of the small but often distinguished village parcels in Turckheim and Wintzenheim; plus young vines from the Hengst. At 3,000 cases, it and the L17N constitute a volume three times the usual for generic Z-H Gewurz. Like the corresponding Pinot Gris, this finished dry at 14% alcohol, yet not only does it retain a fine sense of primary fruit juiciness, it also displays buoyancy that borders on delicacy. That-s not to say the oily richness or sense of inner-mouth expansiveness one expects from its genre are missing. Celery root, brown spices, and rose petal abound in this charmer, with pungent hints of catnip and pepper adding stimulation to an unusually refreshing finish. A small-scale triumph for its vintage which might well keep longer, I would still relish this wine-s youthful allure over the next couple of years." - Davind
Schildknecht (May 2011)
