WTN: Willm Pinot Gris Reserve 2008, Alsace

If you’re like most people, the chill blasts of winter have you yearning for savory stews, chunky chowders, root vegetables and things roasted to savory perfection---in short, comfort food for cold days.

It’s the same in Alsace, where the winter winds coming from the Black Forest can cut to the bone on the slopes of the Vosges Mountains.

One big difference is that most people automatically tend to reach for a hearty red wine to go with winter fare. Not in Alsace. This is white wine country. Sure, there’s Pinot Noir and Pinot Noir Rosé, but the vast majority of wines produced are whites: Riesling, Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc, Gewurztraminer.

In Alsace these whites fare well with hearty foods. In summer they match beautifully with piles of meat-lavish choucroute garni and breaded pork cutlets, after all; and the heavier, more full bodied style and high acidity of Alsace whites stand up exceptionally well with winter foods, thank you very much.

Rich cream chowders? No trouble there. Savory stews heavy with meat and roast veggies? Easy. Roast pork with winter vegetables? Pas de probleme!

Here’s an example:

Willm Pinot Gris Réserve 2008
Don’t mistake Alsace Pinot Gris for those wispy, thin Pinot Grigios from Italy or the chubby young fruit bombs from the west coast of the U.S. Pinot Gris from Alsace is an altogether different wine made of sterner stuff. It’s got full body, firm texture, the smell of ripe peaches, apricots and hardy winter apples, and a bracing mineral acidity that stands up to any food and cuts through the richness of roasted meats and the earthiness of root veggies.

This isn’t a simple little cocktail wine: it’s made to go with the kinds of food Alsatians eat, and Alsatians are hearty eaters, winter and summer, with the gourmet tendencies of their French heritage and the gusto of their German heritage both at work.

The Alsatians are masters of thick and hearty winter stews, and Alsace Pinot Gris pairs beautifully with a meat and potato stew, but also with a mushroom risotto, chestnuts and Brussels sprouts on the side, smoked cold cuts, and anything with truffles.

As an added bonus, the Willm Réserve Pinot Gris has a suggested retail price of only $11.99. For a wine with such weight, complexity and charm, not to mention heritage, that’s a significant bargain these days.

No red wine needed here! The Willm Pinot Gris is a perfect match, one of the winter whites of Alsace.


Excerpted from Examiner.com:
http://www.examiner.com/french-wine-in- ... serve-2008

Hoke, I very much agree. I have a few West Coast P.G. but the Alsatians are what truely capture my heart. I have none at the moment but that will hopefully be cured soon. I have never had a really old (10+ years) Alsatian P.G. but I am sure they are a treasure to behold. I always thought Willm was a very much lesser producer in Alsace so maybe they have improved their game recently.

If you’re like most people, the chill blasts of winter have you yearning for savory stews, chunky chowders, root vegetables and things roasted to savory perfection---in short, comfort food for cold days.

I must not be like most people. Because right about now I'm tired of root vegetables and am yearning for juicy tomatoes and peaches! (Although refreshing citrus is one of the most intelligent and useful things winter fruits have to offer).

As long as I've known you (and it's getting to be a while now) you seem to be yearning for good tomatoes.

I think you start yearning for good tomatoes one day after you have the last tomatoes for that year's crop.

While I most certainly yearn for good tomatoes, I also do not tire of good hearty soups and stews. Or Alsace whites to go with them.

(And no, you're not like most people.)

PS: If you lived here in Oregon you wouldn't be so tired of root veggies right now. You people on the East Coast tend to start that winter thing much sooner and keep it much longer than is good for you.

Would this wine be considered a good "benchmark" for Alsatian PG? If not, what would be? I ask because I just bottled my 2010 PG from local grapes and would like something to compare it to.

Hoke, I very much agree. I have a few West Coast P.G. but the Alsatians are what truely capture my heart. I have none at the moment but that will hopefully be cured soon. I have never had a really old (10+ years) Alsatian P.G. but I am sure they are a treasure to behold. I always thought Willm was a very much lesser producer in Alsace so maybe they have improved their game recently.

Love Alsace PG (well pretty much Alsace anything) too. I also tend to think of Willm as a lesser producer mostly based on the fact that it's one of the Grocery Store Wines I always see and based on it's company that it must be average at best. Maybe a lesson for myself about book cover judging? In any case I'll pick some up forthwith.

I recently splurged on a bottle of the 2007 Domaine Albert Mann Pinot Gris Grand Cru Furstentum ($35.00). It provided a wonderful and powerful glass o' vin. It's a perfect winter white.

Willm a benchmark Alsatian PG?

No, I don't think so.

I'd go towards the Weinbach, Albert Mann, Rolly-Gassman, Boxler and Trimbach.

For a nice, lean, crisper traditional Alsatian-dry PG that's widely distributed, the Trimbach would be good.

Gotta be careful these days though: PG (or Tokay PG, which is still out there) runs the gamut now with sweetness---and I'm not talking about the VT or SGN models! Lots of PGs are getting either sweetness (which I don't care for in Alsatian PGs, sorry), diacetyl form malolactic to soften the wine, or heavy oak.

...I'd go towards the Weinbach, Albert Mann, Rolly-Gassman, Boxler and Trimbach...

Thanks Hoke.

To be honest, you might pick up a Willm PG and try it - there isn't much risk at around $12 a bottle. They are a large producer and produce some bottles that bat above average now and then (as Hoke's note suggests). Willm is probably more representative of what most Alsatian PG tastes like than Weinbach or Boxler (certainly worth trying, but it will cost you a lot more).

To be honest, you might pick up a Willm PG and try it - there isn't much risk at around $12 a bottle. They are a large producer and produce some bottles that bat above average now and then (as Hoke's note suggests). Willm is probably more representative of what most Alsatian PG tastes like than Weinbach or Boxler (certainly worth trying, but it will cost you a lot more).

Well said, Joe. You nailed it. Part of what impresses me about the Willm PG is the low price....that, plus it is a good, decent drinking and representative bottle of PG. I can't afford to drink Weinbach...or even a weekly...basis.

The comparison of Willm to the more prestigious producers in Alsace raises some interesting questions. AOC wines in France must satisfy a gamut of growing and production regulations. Willm is able to do it with its PG, sell it for $11 or $12 and presumably make a profit. A Weinbach PG, meeting those same regulations, sells for $35 or so. Granted, its grapes come from Grand Cru vineyards and Willm's probably do not. But is that all? Does Weinbach do something else? And, hate to ask it, but could Weinbach sell the stuff for $11 or $12 and make a profit?

Willm has some GC bottlings above the basic level too, but I've not tried them. Chances are they are good but not regularly reaching the peaks of the top producers. Weinbach still gets $40 or more for their non-GC wines, so your observation still holds. Perhaps the winemaking is more artisanal, with careful selection and reduced yields? Maybe the quality of those wines justify the pricing but I think it is mainly because they can get it. I love Boxler wines but I haven't had one in years because of the pricing.

Jon and Joe bring up an excellent point, and one worth discussing: there's always that consideration of price/value relationship when I shop for wine.

$30--$45 represents a fairly large investment in a bottle of wine for me. That's something I would purchase only with careful reflection and consideration; and having purchased it I would likely use it for some special occasion, or with selected friends who would appreciate it.

$11 fir a Willm Reserve PG? Absolutely, I'd take a punt on that, without very much hesitation. I'd also be likely to use it for casual dining at home.

Alsace is one of those places that, constantly being under the radar of most of the drinking population in this country, and not saddled with large-volume, mass-driven mega-corporations, can generally afford for their more choice producers to respond to market demand and elevate their prices while still maintaining a goodly number of reasonable and affordably priced producers as well. There's room for both.

I've gone full circle in my appreciation of wine, from the beginning looking at wine as this lovely explorational thing where I was primarily concerned with finding wines that gave me pleasure to investigating seriously and looking for the absolute best, the tete de cuvee, the creme de la creme, and now....back to looking at wine as this lovely explorational thing again, but also looking at wine as an affordable luxury for everyday drinking.

The trouble is, of course, once you've had the best.... But seriously, shouldn't we value a wine like Willm Reserve PG, that delivers a very good wine and enjoyable experience on a regular basis to a Weinbach that delivers exceptional wine on a rare occasion (because of price)?

And one of the things I love about Alsace, truly love, is that it remains a place of family farmers, sturdy, no nonsense farmers who devote themselves to making a farming product as well as they can, and as consistently as they can, with relatively little fuss, and without a lot of clamoring for either attention or massive profits. It's one of those places where, if you can't drink (and eat) well at modest prices, you are either not trying or a total incompetent.