Alsace
Domaine Audrey and Christian Binner
Ammerschwihr
BackgroundIf you judged a wine solely by the establishments at which it is served and sold then, in Paris, Christian Binner is a rock star. Sold at artisan wine stores such as Caves Augé through to restaurants like Le Timbre and bars like Racines; Binner’s wines are Chic. They are the hip Alsace wines in the hip city, don’t worry about fashion though, the wines are as good as it gets in Alsace.
This estate was established in 1770. The average vine age on Binner’s property is 35-years-old, with 40% over 60 years old, and plenty that have entered their second century of productivity. He has an excellent slice of land in and around the Kaefferkopf Grand Cru, close to his home village of Ammerschwihr where the Binner family own nine hectares, with only six planted to vines.
Standing with Christian high up in his carefully ploughed biodynamic vineyards, with nature existing verdantly around you provides a stark contrast to the vast, sterile and chemical-rich vineyards on the huge flat lands below. The fruit from his steep slopes and their hand-harvested low yielding vines cannot ever be viewed as producing the same type of wine as the overcropped, machine-harvested fruit from the fertile plain below.
The Binner family harvest in October, later on average than any of their neighbours, with the patience that allows for fully ripe fruit and resulting compelling complexity of flavour in the bottled wines. Christian uses a long, slow and gentle pressing of all his fruit to extract the juice. Wines are not hurried through their fermentation in large old foudres and the ageing in his cellar, indeed some can take more than a year to finish.
WineUnderstandably, many vignerons rush their wares into bottle to acquire a return on their year’s labour as quickly as possible. It takes an exceptional dedication to quality to slow down this process, and wait until young wines have developed to an ideal stage before letting any bottles leave the cellar. It shows the Binner’s pride in what they do, and you can taste it in the wines. There is a reason why these wines are served with a knowing smile by the best Sommeliers in France and it will become quite apparent to you once you try them; they have a dimension quite of their own and shimmer with vitality.
Domaine Meyer-Fonné
Katzenthal
As soon as I put my nose in the glass at Meyer-Fonné I knew I was interested in working with them. Felix Meyer's wines possess a little bit of magic and no other grower in the area produces wines with such precision, purity and expression of terroir.
The Meyers are descended from a Swiss family that emigrated to Katzenthal in 1732; vines were first planted by the family in the late 18th century and they now have 12 hectares under vine in 7 communes and possess holdings in 5 top Grand Crus: Wineck-Schlossberg, Kaefferkopf, Furstentum, Sporen and Schoenenbourg. They also bottle from 3 venerable lieu-dits around Katzenthal: Dorfburg, Pfoller and Hinterburg (at more than 45 degrees inclination)
Felix has worked diligently to build a solid reputation in Alsace and is now getting domestic AND global critical acclaim for his wines. By working extremely hard in the vineyard; de-budding to keep yields low and picking fully ripe grapes, the immense quality of his palette of terroirs is reflected in every single wine.
A gentle giant of a man, he is humble, passionate and a perfectionist with the result that his wines keep getting more and more interesting - each year and you will find different inflections and subtleties in the aromas and textures of each bottling that clearly represent the evidence of this master at work.
Using natural yeasts, vinification takes place in traditional large foudres on fine lees similarly to Leonard and Olivier Humbrecht with whom Felix worked for several years before returning to his family estate. This is a producer producing some of the most captivating and exciting wines in Alsace, and indeed, France.
Loire Valley