Headily musky and sweet perfume of peony and lily mingles with ripe peach on the nose of Dirler-Cade’s 2008 Pinot Gris Kessler, then migrate to a creamily-textured, luscious, yet persistently juicy palate shot through with mouthwatering salinity and alkaline minerality, which help offset an overt impression of sweetness. There is a lovely sense of lift to the lingering finish of this wine that will prove worth following for at least a dozen years. 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

The Dirlers' 2007 Pinot Gris Kessler features quince, sweet corn, crystallized ginger, marzipan, tinged with chalk dust and peat in an amalgam that put me a bit in mind of a rich, subtly sweet Deidesheim Riesling. Hints of caramel creep onto a creamy palate and point toward the presence of noble rot, and this finishes long and slightly sultry. It should keep well for 12-15 years, and in the process shed some sense of sweetness. Jean-Pierre Dirler was another of those growers to express delight at the 2007 vintage with its wide window of harvest opportunities, but to have sold off or declassified much of his family's production in 2006. It bears repeating that this estate's international profile is not nearly as high as is the quality of wine that have issued from it routinely since at least the mid-1980s, when I first visited here. I did not, unfortunately, have chance to taste quite the entire 2007 Dirler-Cade collection, and canvassed only a small selection of their in any event diminished number of 2006s.Importer: Robert Chadderdon Selections, New York, NY; tel. (212) 757-8185