The Dirlers’ 2009 Pinot Gris Schimberg managed to finish dry-tasting, if at the price of 14+% of alcohol that is ultimately detected as faint warmth. What’s more, its early-picking is betrayed in a slight sense of chewy, green herbacity. Greenhouse-like herbal and bittersweetly floral notes abound and an alkaline note generates some further complexity as well as counterpoint with peach and melon fruit. Drink this over the next couple of years. (A “Reserve” bottling of Pinot Gris was strikingly redolent of musk and pungently-herbed liverwurst, but ultimately a bit drying, warm, and unfocussed in finish.) As usual chez Dirler, I was forced during my most recent visit to take a slightly abbreviated tour of the two most recent collections on account of this family’s sheer multitude of bottlings, but it is clear from their 2008s that this remains one of the most frequently exciting – and generally consistent – sources of wine in Alsace, making it unfortunate that one doesn’t see Dirler-Cade wines more often in the U.S. Moreover, this is an estate that’s rendering highly distinctive; often deliciously unorthodox; but never fashion-pandering innovations while retaining a clear and constant vision of how the classic cepages of Alsace should perform in sites that can boast some of the longest – not to mention most-deserved – reputations of any in their region. All this having been noted, 2009 was a challenge even here: sometimes well-met, but seldom entirely surmounted. Rieslings were being harvested as early as mid-September, and Jean Dirler observes that had he cut back the crop on his Pinot Gris and Gewurztraminer rather than allowing bunches to remain abundant, he would really have had a problem with sky-high potential alcohol. (For more on the Dirlers’ sites and methods, consult my reports on earlier vintages.)Importer: Robert Chadderdon Selections, New York, NY; tel. (212) 757-8185
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