Humbrecht forecasts change for Alsace

Olivier Humbrecht MW predicted important changes for the future of wine growing in Alsace as he introduced Zind-Humbrecht’s 2007 vintage last week. 

Noting an annual temperature increase of around 0.8°C over the past 15 years, Humbrecht outlined the need for Alsatian producers to adapt to their region’s changing conditions.

 

“Today my major concern is not to fight for ripeness – that was my father’s main dilemma”, explained Humbrecht, maintaining that achieving enough sugar levels was now no longer a problem for Alsace’s top quality estates. In place of this, he observed: “Our fight now is to achieve elegance and balance.”

Stressing the need to achieve full physiological ripeness as well as sugar levels, Humbrecht, who is widely recognised as a pioneer of biodynamic winemaking, revealed: “For the last 15 years I have had to change our cultivation and find a way to harvest earlier grapes that are not green.

“We try to work on the way we cultivate the soil, how and when it’s ploughed and especially on our vineyard management to make the vine stop growing as soon as possible.”

In order to achieve this last aim, Humbrecht no longer hedges his vines, explaining: “It’s like grass; the more you cut it, the quicker it grows back. It perpetrates a state of constant growth and means grape ripeness will be severely affected.” Whereas in hotter French regions such as Roussillon, vines naturally stop growing when water becomes scarce, Humbrecht noted that this situation rarely arises in the northerly Alsace.

Developing his theme a stage further, Humbrecht warned: “In the next 50 years we’ll have to start looking at different grape varieties.” He highlighted Muscat Ottonel and Pinot Auxerrois as the most likely candidates to be dropped in future, saying of the easy-ripening Muscat, “Today in most areas it is far too flabby and is gradually being replaced by Muscat d’Alsace [Muscat Blanc].”

Of the Auxerrois, which is usually blended with Pinot Blanc, Humbrecht explained: “Most of the Pinot Blanc is used now to produce Crémant d’Alsace, so increasingly the Auxerrois is left on its own. Auxerrois makes nice aromatic wine, but tends to have low acidity. Maybe in a few years it’ll be Vermentino instead – I don’t know!” 

However, Humbrecht expressed less immediate fears about the future viability of Alsace’s most important varieties, Riesling, Gewurztraminer and Pinot Gris. Despite the prospect of change, he maintained: “It doesn’t mean the quality from Alsace will be any worse; the grape variety is only a tool to express the land.” However, he added, “The earlier you can start to experiment the better.”

For Humbrecht, the conditions in 2009 only served to strengthen his belief in the acceptance of change. “In 2009 we got a little reminder of what could happen if things get much warmer. It was not as bad as 2003, but some growers really struggled to get [physiological] ripeness.”

Gabriel Savage, 02.12.09