2005 Gewurztraminer Cuvee des Comtes d'Eguisheim

The 2005 Gewurztraminer Comtes d’Eguisheim smells of toasted pecans, honey, tangerine rind and smoked meats. In the mouth this exhibits unusual refreshment to go with its richness and breadth, and there is never a hint of heaviness, ponderousness, or heat. The finish here is a glorious display of what is possible with this grape and in the fantastic terroirs of Alsace: fully dry, powerful, and intriguingly complex along carnal, herbal, fruit and mineral axes. Brown spices, sugar snap peas, tangerine, peach, pralines, salts, iodine, and honey are among a few of the flavors that will be found in the oceanic depths of this candidate for two to three decades of cellar evolution. Marc Beyer continues to uphold traditions of dry-tasting wine (even the very occasional Vendange Tardive bottling here is generally only subtly sweet) and late-release. This is not an Alsace address that seems to have received much fanfare in the English language press in recent years, but I find the wines to have been constant in their quality over my 22 years of acquaintance. Indeed, I would not hesitate in describing the best of them as “classic,” while recognizing that others might say “retro.” Beyer is particularly happy with his 2005s, comparing them to the 1990s for their combination of richness and acidity. But a large part of the pleasure in buying wines from this address lies in accessing more mature vintages, and now is a last chance to snap up Beyer’s outstanding renditions of vintages 2002 and 2001. As some of Beyer’s rare nobly sweet wines going back a decade are still in the marketplace, and as these wines have never been reviewed by me nor in the pages of the Wine Advocate, I take the liberty of noting that the creamy, subtly smoky 1997 Pinot Gris S.G.N. (92 points) is a wonderful exercise in restraint yet complexity for its genre; the explosively rich 1998 Gewurztraminer S.G.N. (94 points) displays uncanny freshness and lift as well as merely subtle sweetness for all of its 110 grams residual sugar and honeyed, candied fruit, and herbal liqueur character; and the 1998 Gewurztraminer S.G.N. Quintessence (95 points) – a silken herbal-, floral-, citric-, caramelized liqueur-of-a-wine – displays phenomenal elegance and vivacity that utterly belie its viscosity. Imported by: Martine’s Wines, Novato, CA; tel. (415) 883-0400 and HB Wine Merchants, New York, NY; tel. (917) 402 0456.