Alsace 2023: Astonishing Whites and Splendid Reds from a Complex Year

BY ANNE KREBIEHL, MW | APRIL 1, 2025

Dry, dry, dry—this is how Alsatian vignerons remember the 2023 vintage. Once again, soil types were predictors of success. Sandy, gravelly sites on the plain suffered, and steep, stony sites of granite and sandstone struggled. However, more water-retentive limestone and marl soils generally fared well. Whether a vineyard got some respite from a refreshing shower after a thunderstorm was purely down to luck. But dryness was just one aspect of this complex year. Sévérine Schlumberger said, “Two thousand twenty-three was a vintage like I had never experienced before. It felt like four different vintages in one year.” Jean Dirler of Domaine Dirler-Cade used the term “curious” to describe 2023, with “several periods of heat and drought and several periods of cooler weather, changing all the time.”

Hoar frost settled in the Vosges mountains in January 2025, pictured here with the sun breaking through the clouds.

The Course of the Year

Spring was especially dry, with just 16.5 mm of rain falling in the first three months of the year. Compare that to 63 mm in 2022 and 74 mm in 2024 for the same period. Cooler temperatures ensured a later budburst, which meant that most growers escaped April frosts. Hot weather during flowering was a positive for Pinot varieties, which had plentiful yields, but it also meant coulure (poor fruit-set) for Riesling. Dryness really took hold in summer, with June 2023 the second hottest since records began in 1931. The warm weather also posed oidium (powdery mildew) pressure. July remained warm but saw some showers, with August cooling down and bringing much-needed rain. September was the hottest in Alsace since 1947. The Indian summer carried into October with summery temperatures, culminating in seemingly never-ending rain.

“There was a real spring,” said Mélanie Pfister in Dahlenheim, located close to Strasbourg in the north of Alsace. Pfister noted a slow awakening of nature, thankfully without the risk of spring frost, as a cool April delayed the vines. She recalled, “Everything went pretty fast from May onwards. May and June were really dry. We planted new plots and had to water them five times. In two months, we did not even have 40 mm of rain, something that I had never experienced before. Neither had my father. Fortunately, there was no blockage of ripening because showers in late July and early August brought relief, right before a late-August heatwave and a warm September with temperatures exceeding 30°C.”

Charles Sparr in Wettolsheim (just outside Colmar in central Alsace) described a “relatively dry and mild winter,” with a cooler March delaying vegetation beyond any spring frost danger. He added, “Spring was quite warm, and flowering started in the second week of June in hot weather. In July, we saw that some vineyards started to have some dry stress. Some sites suffered, especially on sandy and granitic soils, but all the limestone sites were in good shape.” A cooler August followed, which, according to Sparr, “saved the harvest.”  Further south, in Bergholtz, Jean Dirler remembers his thermometer reading 38°C on July 9 and nights cooling down to 8°C in August. Despite these extremes, no producers reported slow ferments. On the contrary, fermentation posed no problems at all in 2023, pointing to balanced, healthy fruit.

Mélanie Pfister is one of Alsace's young stars. Her Pinot Noir Rahn is particularly seductive.

The 2023 Rieslings

August rains came as a relief to everyone but were especially beneficial to Riesling, which had a smaller crop load due to the poor fruit-set from heat during flowering. When heat and dryness coincide, Riesling tends to slow and eventually shut down its metabolism. This is why the 2023 Rieslings do not taste of heat or stress. Pierre Trimbach confirmed, “The dryness did not bring us very high sugar levels.” He also noted that some grapes had to be discarded due to dry stress. Other producers decided to declassify some Grand Cru Rieslings, especially from granite sites. However, older vines with established root networks and lower natural yields weathered 2023 with aplomb and brought forth stunning wines. Some winemakers seemed positively surprised that a year that had been so dry yielded such fresh, lively wines. In sites that did not suffer, the dryness simply meant delay so that sugar levels did not race ahead of phenolic ripeness, affording the grapes full aromatic development. The 2023 Rieslings thus have concentration, moderate alcohol, ripe acidity and great aging potential.

Pinot Gris and Sylvaner Excel

Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris and Gewurztraminer performed well in 2023, the result of healthy fruit and good yields. Even Sylvaner shines with notable fruit expression in this vintage, which is not a dig at Sylvaner but merely an observation. Sylvaner tends to deliver wines of texture and subtle aromas and rarely boasts such fruity notes, yet another indicator of the aromatic success of 2023. As always, the stylistic spectrum of both Pinot Gris and Gewurztraminer is broad, a function of farming and harvest points. The quality these varieties can achieve truly surprises me, especially Pinot Gris. For producers trying to make bone-dry, taut styles of Pinot Gris, Etienne Loew in Westhoffen put it succinctly: “If you ask yourself twice whether this is the right moment to pick, you are three times late already.” Pinot Gris did exceptionally well in 2023, with some as tense and snappy as Riesling, but without sacrificing fruit. These wines garnered some really high scores, and yes, I am surprised to be writing this. By the same token, the more “classic” Pinot Gris styles, with residual sugar and amplitude of body and fruit, also present wonderful balance. Dry Gewurztraminer is much harder to pull off, and most of the wines I tasted have some residual sweetness. The range of styles here is more defined by textural elements, sometimes helped along by partial skin-fermentation. Readers who have not tasted mature Gewurztraminer at 10+ years of bottle age should investigate. The variety may not be in line with the lighter, brighter zeitgeist, but it reaches some of its greatest expressions in Alsace, especially with age.

Thomas Larmoyer of Soil Therapy is a real garagiste.

The Pinot Noirs

While Alsace still does its stock-in-trade of light, fruity, easy-drinking Pinot Noir, there now are some serious and elegant expressions of the variety, wines that are reflective of site without the need to resort to extraction or oak in order to be taken seriously. As of the 2023 vintage, the Hengst site in Wintzenheim and the Kirchberg de Barr achieved Grand Cru designation; beginning with the 2024 vintage, the same will be allowed for Vorbourg in Rouffach. I am told that another application is underway to pursue Grand Cru status for Pinot Noir for Furstentum in Kientzheim, a process that may take years. Notably, these sites are all on various kinds of limestone and marl-limestone, but as we know, Pinot Noir can yield exceptional wines on various soil types.

With every visit to Alsace, I hear more and more of Pinot Noir-based plans, i.e., the intention to plant the variety in small but significant parcels to make small but exceptional batches of red wine. Some producers intend to graft existing parcels to Pinot Noir, like Jean-Christophe Bott did in 2021 with a 0.4-hectare parcel of Furstentum that he grafted over from Pinot Gris. Pierre Trapet plans to do the same, also in Furstentum. Sadly, we have to be patient to taste the results, but these small increases in hectarage are gradual and steady. The excitement about the variety is clear. While Pinot Noir still occupies only 12% of Alsace plantings (1,840 hectares), this represents a 10-hectare increase since 2023 and a giant jump since modern Alsace statistics began in 1969. At that time, there were a mere 198 hectares of Pinot Noir in the entire region, which represented just 2.1% of the then-total vine area of 9,441 hectares. Of course, a sizeable part of the region’s Pinot Noir now goes into Crémant d’Alsace Rosé, which by law must be 100% Pinot Noir, but the regional trend and qualitative intent are quite clear and certainly evident in the glass. As regards the lighter styles mentioned before, these are wines of purest pleasure. Consumed with a slight chill on a summer evening, a bottle can disappear very quickly indeed.

New blood in Alsace: Angela Prado and Ghislain Moritz of Maison Moritz-Prado smile in their new winery in the high-altitude village of Albé.

Effervescent News

Two big effervescent surprises awaited me on my January visits this year. Crémant d’Alsace, as reported last year, is a powerful motor for the region, with various cooperatives pumping out millions of bottles that do exceptionally well in French supermarkets. In 2024, Crémant accounted for 36.3% of the region’s total output, up from last year’s 33%. However, while this perfectly competent if anodyne fizz might not excite the dedicated bubbleheads among us, two names will: both Zind-Humbrecht and Famille Hugel are now producing Crémant d’Alsace, a move that demonstrates what a hot category Crémant has become.

While Zind-Humbrecht is still in the experimental stage, with nothing readily disgorged for me to taste (I had heard the rumor and sprung the question on Olivier Humbrecht during my visit), I was able to taste the Crémant d’Alsace at Hugel. Olivier Humbrecht said that he and his son Pierre-Émile, who was the impetus behind the project, started experimenting in 2020 with Chardonnay grown at Clos Windsbuhl. The Humbrechts were pleased with the initial results and did it again in 2022, this time including some single-site Pinot Blanc. The experimental bottles are still on lees, and so is the larger batch made in 2024.

Blue skies and full sunshine light up the Grand Cru of Kastelberg, rising behind the historic facades of Andlau.

At Famille Hugel, the Crémant project was initiated by Marc-André Hugel (cousin of Jean-Frédéric Hugel), who grew up in Champagne, but this is not intended to be a Champagne copy. The Hugel Crémant is a blend of Pinot Noir and Riesling with a smaller portion of Pinot Gris, disgorged after four years on lees with just 4 g/L of dosage. Jean-Frédéric Hugel explained, “The idea was to create something original, hence including Riesling that producers often run away from [when it comes to Crémant], and then long lees-aging” The initial production of 6,000 bottles will launch in 2025 and might be the beginning of a great new story for Hugel. But Crémant ambition is also evident elsewhere. At Crémant-specialist Jean-Claude Buecher in Wettolsheim, every step of the process, including bottling, is now done in house. At Domaine Emile Beyer in Eguisheim, Valérie and Christian Beyer have planted more Chardonnay in the lieu-dit Stech close to Grand Cru Pfersigberg to make Crémant de terroir, also dedicating space in the new cellar for aging Crémant. Christian Beyer believes that “Crémant can have the signature of the soil.” The single-site Crémants of Domaine Valentin Zusslin have illustrated this point for years.

Eruptive News

There is also excellent news for lovers of volcanic-influenced wines. Wolfberger, the cooperative behemoth, has divested all but a tiny part of its holdings in Grand Cru Rangen, a steep, imposing volcanic site in the far south of the region and one of the most iconic in Alsace. To date, only two domaines marketed Rangen far and wide, namely Zind-Humbrecht and Schoffit (both reviewed here). There are three lucky buyers with 1.3 hectares each: Domaine Trapet, Domaine Marcel Deiss and Château Ollwiller (to be reviewed in the coming year). This is exciting because this challenging site deserves—no, demands—to be farmed by brilliant winemakers who can do it justice. “It is a legendary Grand Cru,” Trapet said, adding, “Rangen is the place to be, because it is hard, and you have to be clever. You feel the strength of the place.” Trapet plans to increase vine density by planting in inter-rows. He, Mathieu Deiss and Mathieu Kauffmann also plan to have an experimental plot, or a “test zone,” as Trapet calls it, to plant ungrafted vines and test various grape varieties. The three new owners may install a monorail to deal with steepness. They may also have to rebuild the drystone walls and are considering employing drones for some spraying. “It is a big, big, big challenge,” Trapet said, one that he clearly relishes. Olivier Humbrecht added: “It shows that the reputation of the vineyard is strong enough to motivate people to go towards trouble,” meaning that the exceptional steepness of the site will demand much effort.

They say you shouldn't point at rainbows, but photographing them is alright. This one appeared during my tasting in Bergheim.

The Outlook

Much is happening in Alsace, with the merger of the co-op giants Wolfberger and Bestheim on course but yet to happen. The bifurcation of Alsace into mass production and artisanal excellence continues, but the news in this report is cause for optimism, as are new and younger domaines like Soil Therapy and Maison Moritz Prado.

I tasted the wines in this report during estate visits in January 2025.

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