2019 Meyer-Fonné Riesling Grand Cru Mandelberg Vieilles Vignes
VARIETAL: Riesling
REGION: Alsace, FR
VITICULTURE: Organic
WINEMAKER: Félix Meyer
This is the new wine from the estate, it is a Grand Cru since 1992 from the town of Mittelwihr. It's South, South-East facing and these vines were planted in 1974. This vineyard is quite coveted and Felix is very happy to have a parcel here; the Trimbach family make a wine from here as do Bott-Geyl. This wine can be described as beautiful, it has a sumptuousness and a decadence that comes from a great site yet it has great tension and clarity of aroma and flavour and a regal complexity on the finish. This is a great Grand Cru Riesling from Felix and one that will keep well in the cellar.
"Our vineyards are now mostly located on the hillsides, so the historic part of the Alsatian vineyards", says Félix. Only about 25% of the current holdings of 14 hectares of vines are located in the valley floor and are exclusively planted with either Pinot Blanc or Auxerrois. All the noble grape varieties, however, are cultivated in historic vineyards in the hillsides, which give predominantly dry and nervy, terroir-driven wines full of expression and mineral tension. There are no less than five Grand Cru vineyards—Kaefferkopf, Wineck-Schlossberg, Sporen, Furstentum and Schoenenbourg—that are organically farmed and cultivated and they all give deep, racy and firmly structured wines that intermix ripe fruit flavors and seductive textures with a vital and mineral backbone.
The winemaking is very traditional here, since most of the investments have been made in the low-yielding vineyards, with top old-vines parcels in the best sites, high density plantings and the vitalization of the soils. No synthetic fertilizers, herbicides or pesticides are used at all. The fermentation of the naturally cleared musts takes place with native yeasts in either stainless steel or traditional oak, and after racking, the wines are kept on the lees until May (Alsace AOC) and respectively September (single vineyards) before bottling.