{"id":10570,"date":"2024-05-20T16:20:16","date_gmt":"2024-05-20T08:20:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/terroirsense.com\/?p=10570"},"modified":"2024-05-20T16:20:16","modified_gmt":"2024-05-20T08:20:16","slug":"wines-of-the-week-tiberio-paul-blanck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/terroirsense.com\/en\/p\/10570.html","title":{"rendered":"Wines of the Week: Tiberio & Paul Blanck"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tiberio 2010 Pecorino Colline Pescaresi Abruzzo\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 94<\/strong><\/p>\n

by Ian D\u2019Agata<\/p>\n

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From one of the two or three recognized masters of this grape variety, a knockout, very hard-to-find old Pecorino wine. Golden-tinged yellow-green colour. Enticing, complex nose offers peach, Kaiser pear, white flowers, crushed stone, citrus peel, gingery spices and a chamomile nuance; picks up hints of tropical fruit with aeration. Forward, broad, and impeccably pure, displaying outstanding breadth to its orchard fruit and herbal flavours; this is ripe and lemony at the same time. Still bright and vigorous at fourteen years of age, this saturates the entire mouth with tactile extract and nuances of balsamic oils and grilled herbs (rosemary, sage). Manages the neat trick of being rich and thick but without leaving an impression of undue weight. I remember tasting this wine directly at the winery the year it was first released, and I\u2019d say it has delivered on its early promise, and then some. Well done! Drinking window: 2024-2028.<\/p>\n

Paul Blanck 1993 Pinot Noir \u201cF\u201d Alsace\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 93<\/strong><\/p>\n

by Robert Millman<\/p>\n

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A good number of Alsace producers were in New York recently for a tasting of wines made from all the major Alsatian varieties. The event was marketed under the title \u201cAlsace Rocks\u201d which is cringe worthy to my mind. Public Relations and marketing may or may not be necessary evils in the wine business.\u00a0 Alas it is the case that sales of Alsatian wines\u2014with the exception of the wines from Trimbach\u2014have fallen in the past decade. There are any number of factors: the increasing role of dry Rieslings from Germany, the rise of dry Chenin Blancs from the Loire Valley, the restaurant worthiness of Gr\u00fcner Veltliners, many more affordable Chardonnay based wines from the Macon. Perhaps the problem can be traced back to what is in fact an inherent strength to Alsatian wines\u2014the proliferation of varieties beyond Riesling: Gewurztraminer, Muscadet, Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc, Sylvaner, Pinot Noir. A wine lover could practically live on Alsatian wines alone with a bit of Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon thrown in for variation! TerroirSense Wine Review Editor-in-Chief Ian D\u2019Agata has written about this at length (and he makes the point that while many of Alsace\u2019s wines rank with the best in the world, and actually have no peers -think of the region\u2019s amazing Gewurztraminers- far too much Alsace wine isn\u2019t good enough but is allowed to be labeled even with a grand cru\u2019s name, for example). For most wine drinkers, Alsace means great Riesling. Those are in competition with Rieslings from Germany and Austria. Of course, a side-by-side comparison between top- examples from each region reveals wonderful differences in style, aroma, above all palate texture. Why not some of each?<\/p>\n

One grape that has started to excel in Alsace is Pinot Noir which has benefited greatly from global warming. The top Pinots from Domaine Albert Mann are now priced at the level of many village Burgundies. My own tasting confirmed this most welcome development. Many Alsatian Pinot Noirs are not so much an alternative to red Burgundies but a worthy category unto themselves. This was brought home to me when I tasted the Domaine Paul Blanck 1993 Pinot Noir \u201cF\u201d at the above-mentioned Alsatian event. Firstly, why the F in quotations (and \u201cH\u201d for the best Albert Mann Pinot Noir)? Alsatian rules do not permit the use of the full name of a Grand Cru site for anything other than the white varietals. The growers, being clever, use the first name of the vineyard and place it in quotation marks. \u201cF\u201d stands for Furstentum, a wonderful grand cru that makes superb Gewurztraminers and Pinot Gris (and pretty good Rieslings!). And, not surprisingly, some first-class Pinot Noir wines.<\/p>\n

But how would a 21 years old Alsatian Pinot show at this point? The answer came from the glass that Philippe poured for me. I am pleased to report very well indeed. Philippe smiled because he already knew that this was a fine Pinot from what turned out to be a very good if not the best vintage in Alsace for its Pinot-based wines: Heavy rains hit in late September causing some dilution after what was an excellent season. The wine\u2019s color showed a bit of aging on the edge but was otherwise of medium density with the purple giving way to garnet. (Color is rarely a good indicator of what to expect from a Pinot Noir.) On the palate the wine was fluid, and expressive with a lovely herbal\/woodsy note, really excellent fresh acidity and smooth tannins. Like a fine Riesling, the wine was nuanced and engaging yet graceful in its finish. The 1993 tasted ten years younger than it was. I wonder how many Red Burgundies from 1993 would be as well balanced and satisfying? The pedigree of the source, a Grand Cru vineyard (along with gentle extraction, I may add) was evident in every sip. The wine was a surprise yet not a surprise. Greatness in Alsatian wine is now present in its Pinot Noirs. Drinking Window: 2024-2029.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n
Tiberio 2010 Pecorino Colline Pescaresi Abruzzo<\/td>\n94<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Paul Blanck 1993 Pinot Noir \u201cF\u201d Alsace<\/td>\n93<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Robert Millman and Ian D\u2019Agata<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":10571,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[125],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wines-of-the-week","pmpro-has-access"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/terroirsense.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/terroirsense.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/terroirsense.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terroirsense.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terroirsense.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10570"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/terroirsense.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10570\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10574,"href":"https:\/\/terroirsense.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10570\/revisions\/10574"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terroirsense.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/terroirsense.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terroirsense.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terroirsense.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}