Over the years I have enjoyed and reviewed many wines from
Alsace, France with their distinctively shaped bottles and
sometimes, but not always, their distinctive taste. This is
the first time that I have found one in the inexpensive
price range here defined as $10 and less. I'd like to say
something about this price limit. I live in Ontario, Canada
where wine prices tend to be somewhat higher than in many
parts of the United States. Our dollar fluctuates and I
don't want to cut off a wine because the Canadian dollar
inched up a bit. So I specify about $10 when it's floating
near the limit.
Alsace is a relatively small wine-producing region. Its
wine growing area is a mere 60 miles (100 kilometers) long
and at most 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) wide sitting on the
German border to the east. Almost all its wine is white.
While Sylvaner is fairly widely planted, it is not
considered a fine grape in Alsace or elsewhere. For $10 did
you expect to get a fine grape from an expensive region in
an expensive wine producing country? However, this wine
just might turn out to be a bargain.
OUR WINE REVIEW POLICY All wines that we taste and review
are purchased at the full retail price.
Wine Reviewed Dopff and Irion Crystal d'Alsace Sylvaner
2007 11.9 % alcohol about $10
Let's start with the marketing materials. Tasting Note:
Pale straw color; light floral aromas with hints of pear
and melon; fresh and lively with green apple, lime and
herbal notes on the palate; crisp, clean finish. Serving
Suggestion: Seafood or fish; quiche, etc... And now for my
review.
I started by sipping this wine alone. It was lightly sweet,
quite long, and mildly acidic. The first meal was smoked
turkey thighs cooked with chickpeas. The wine was appley
and refreshing but uni-dimensional and light.
The second meal was a commercial shepherd's pie. Now the
Sylvaner tastes both lemony and appely. Its acidity is
pretty good but the length was inconsistent. When I added
some Turkish hot pepper it became stronger and wasn't
overwhelmed. This is by no means the hot pepper sauce that
I love (even if the two share the name Harissa). I can only
wonder how this wine would handle the pungency of the real
thing.
The final meal consisted of chicken meat balls slow cooked
with soft wheat. The wine became rounder and was sharply
acidic, tasting of citrus fruits. It was palate cleansing.
I completed this tasting with two cheeses. The first cheese
was an Italian-style Ricotta cottage cheese. It was hard to
define the wine's fruit, perhaps gooseberry. The wine
became somewhat sweeter. This wine and cheese pairing
turned out better than average. Then I went to a Provolone.
The Sylvaner was citrusy, modestly long with pleasant
acidity.
Final verdict. I would buy this wine again. It does qualify
as a bargain. You can easily pay much more for Alsace wine
and not get better. But it's not a wine to rave about.
----------------------------------------------------
Levi Reiss has authored or co-authored ten computer and
Internet books, but frankly prefers drinking fine German or
other wine, accompanied by the right foods and the right
people. He teaches computer classes at an Ontario
French-language community college. Check out his wine
website http://www.theworldwidewine.com with a weekly
column reviewing $10 wines and new sections writing about
(theory) and tasting (practice) organic and kosher wines.
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