2008 Domaine Barmès-Buecher Tokay-Pinot Gris Rosenberg VT

This year incorporating fruit from that portion of Rosenberg which has on occasion been separately bottled under its parcel name Pfleck, the Barmes-Buecher 2008 Pinot Gris Rosenberg is not going to represent everyone’s ideals for that cepage. Fungal, alkaline, and forest floor aromas along with ripe peach and toasted nuts migrate from the nose to a palate both vivacious for this variety and at the same time full and rather awkwardly lactic. This finishes with only moderately juicy persistence but certainly with a fascinating array of nuances. It will be interesting to follow for a few years, but I would do so closely as I am quite unsure about its longer-term prospects. As Francois Barmes was in the U.S. presenting his wines all the time that I was in Alsace last November, I tasted with his wife Genevieve and (for the first time in serious conversation with) his son Maxime, who clearly has the sharp wits and experimental spirit to harness his youthful enthusiasm. (I did not, however, ask him to play devil’s advocate in the case for biodynamics, which is by now a well-established practice at this address! For more on Barmes’ methodology, consult my report in issue 188.) Most of the 2009 Rieslings were almost shockingly low in acidity, but whether or not and if so to what degree they were thereby handicapped varied depending on the individual cuvee. Overall, Barmes’ approach to this vintage seems to have been to avoid problems from rapidly-ascending sugar and low acidity by picking relatively early, even if at the price of capturing only modestly ripe flavors. The array of 2009s I have reviewed is somewhat abbreviated, first on account of decisions the domaine made to conflate or omit the bottling of certain cuvees; secondly because a couple of Pinot Gris were still fermenting when I visited last November; and thirdly since from among a trio of whites still in tank awaiting sulfuring and bottling – testimony to the anomalously and inexplicably slow evolution of 2009s at this address – only one was in condition amenable to assessment. The 2008 collection is, thankfully, much more typically excellent. Importer: Sussex Wine Merchants, Moorestown, NJ; tel. (856) 608 9644; also, a Thomas Calder Selection (various importers), Paris; fax 011-33-1-46-45-15-29