Riesling Clos Häuserer 2019

A dry Riesling with drive: juicy fruit on the nose, overlaid with smoke, and salt and acidity on the palate. It is this combination of charm and an austere, chalky edge that defines this wine.

The Clos Häuserer covers 1.2 hectares and was planted with Riesling in 1973. Léonard Humbrecht created it by merging many small plots into a single contiguous square. At the top it borders the Grand Cru Hengst, at the bottom the Häuserer road, which dates back to an ancient Roman settlement. The bedrock is a siliceous marl-limestone from the Oligocene, topped by a layer of topsoil roughly one metre deep. The microclimate is warm in summer, the soil stays cool, and the vines never suffer from drought.

Pure Riesling, harvested in 2019 at perfect ripeness. On this geology the wines ferment slowly; the Clos Häuserer was vinified bone dry and comes in at 13.0% vol. Olivier Humbrecht farms biodynamically, keeps yields to 30 to 40 hectolitres per hectare, gives the wines at least six months of lees contact and lets them age one to two years in the cellar.

Ripe peach, apple, pear and ripe pineapple meet a chalky note, gripping salinity and brilliant acidity. The finish is long and invigorating, pointing to fantastic ageing potential. Anyone opening it now should decant the wine for several hours and serve it in a large glass; it gains in expression over several days.

With golden-baked parsnip blinis with salmon and dill sour cream, with horseradish soup with caramelised apple, and with Atlantic skate pan-fried on the bone, with Noilly Prat sauce and peppermint oil.

Olivier Humbrecht, the first Frenchman to hold the title of Master of Wine, runs the estate in the family tradition of the Humbrechts, established since 1620; since 2019 Pierre Émile Humbrecht has joined as the eleventh generation.