Alsace, Burgundy and labeling, oh my!

With the lovely weather we've been having, it's been hard to force myself to sit down and write about this past week's class. I hope my fellow Northeasterners understand!

This past week we covered Alsace, a great and often overlooked region and Burgundy, one of my favorite regions.

Alsatian wines are primarily made of Riesling or Gewurztraminer, though they tend to be very dry representations of these grapes. I love these Rieslings and Gewurztraminers. They are generally dry, elegant and so very food friendly. We tasted two great Alsatian wines: Marcel Deiss Riesling 2007 and Charles Schleret Gewurztraminer. As expected, the Riesling had a lot of honeysuckle notes while the Gewurztraminer had a classical Gewurz nose of rose water wth some lovely fruit and florals on the palette. Both had me craving Thai noodles.

As mentioned before, Burgundy reds are made primarily of Pinot Noir or Gamay and Burgundy whites are made primarily of Chardonnay or Aligote (much less common). The hardest thing to master about Burgundy wines is understanding the labeling and to be honest, I have a long, long way to go. If I even tried to lay it out here I'd end up confusing all of us. Perhaps one day I'll be able to explain it clearly. Until then, I'll just have to talk about the wine itself.

We tasted one white and three reds. I'd had the white at a tasting dinner a few months ago and though I tend not to love the very dry, mineral-ly whites from Burgundy, I really liked this particular one: Camile Giruod Beaune "Lulunne." Would have been even better if we'd had some scallops!

And of the reds, we had one Beaujolais, made from the Gamay grape, and two Pinot Noirs. The Beuajolais was a tasty, young wine with a mouth ful of strawberry and pepper. The first Pinot Noir was another wine I'd had before. It was the Domaine A. et P. De Villaines "Bourgogne Rouge" 2008 that I raved about after last Saturday's tasting. The final Pinot Noir (and final wine of the evening) was a Domaine Fourrier "Vielle Vignes" 2007. It was very tasty with a ton of strawberry fruit and a nice degree of tannin making it something I'd lay down for a few years (actually, if had the money I'd buy a few bottles and lay them down).

All in all I really liked the tastings though the class reminded me I have my work cut out for me. For the first time since grad. school I'll be making some flash cards.

This week we have no class, but who knows what I'll be corking this week.

Until the next sniff, sip or quaff,

Cheers,

Alli M.