Is it a light red, or a dark rosé? Neither! It's an "orange wine" made from a maceration of Pinot Gris; A skin contact wine of a gray (actually pink) grape that yields a raspberry-hued wine that we wish we...

La Table des Rois is 100% Pinot Noir from Alsace, with a short maceration intended to yield a light and lithe red that leans into freshness instead of structure and earthiness. The approach is a success, and though the wine...

Kvevri is a new wine from Philippe Brand that was aged with some skin contact in buried Kvevri (Georgian spelling is Kvevri or Qvevri, otherwise known as Amphora) in Philippe's garden in Alsace. A blend of Pinot Auxerrois, Chardonnay and...

60% Pinot Auxerrois/40% Sylvaner. Honeydew Melon, stone fruit, white flowers on the nose. Though a touch volatile at first, it blows off after about 15 minutes. Lemon-curd and hay notes on the palate. Though overall a relatively soft wine, there's...

The 2020 Frick Gewurstraminer Macération is from two parcels: Terroir Krottenfues, soil marno-gréseux, high on a slope above grand Cru Vorbourg, and from a limestone terroir below Grand Cru Steinert, facing due east. Grapes see ten-days of whole-cluster maceration before...

The Frick 2020 Pinot Noir "Strangenberg" is from grapes grown at the summit of a dry hill, with brown calcerous soils over hard limestone bedrock. The grapes undergo a fifteen day whole-cluster fermentation and are then pressed, with no addition...

100% Sylvaner, Pur Vin Nature with no added SO2, from the lieu-dit "Bergweingarten" on brown calcerous soils, mid-slope, aged on the lees for seven months in old foudre. This is a vibrant dry Sylvaner, drinking more like a dry Riesling.

Though it seems like a relatively new category, it turns out winemakers in Alsace have been making skin contact wines for some time. The first may have been Bannwarth, who experimented with qvevri (georgian clay anforae). Then, along with the...