Brand identity

Zind-Humbrecht 2007 Riesling Brand (Alsace) – Indice 2. 13.5%, and while I have no visual reason (based on adhesion to the interior of my glass) to doubt this number is far off the mark, my palate is screaming that it’s something more like 15.8%. Which it probably isn’t, but that should give one an idea of the incredible, overwhelming density, heat, and pineapple sludge which are this wine’s primary characteristics. "Isn't the Brand supposed to be one of the great vineyards of Alsace," one might ask. Change that verb to "wasn't," and I think we're on the right, if unfortunate, track. Its centuries of value as a perfectly-situated solar attractor may now be working to its detriment in these differently-acclimatized times, and no more so than at houses where extremes of ripeness can sometimes be an end in themselves. (7/11)

Herren the dog

Zind-Humbrecht 2001 Riesling Herrenweg de Turckheim (Alsace) – Liquefied vineyard dust, bronzed orange, molten amber. What firmness there was has been overtaken by lushness. Fully, fulsomely mature. (5/11)

Zind-Humbrecht 2001 Riesling Herrenweg de Turckheim (Alsace) – Very slightly edgier than the previous bottle, but still a copper-jacketed exercise in ambered snow globe, swirling with dust. I do like this wine in its blocky, steroidal bodybuilder way, but absolutely do not hold it any longer. (5/11)

Hairy wig

Zind-Humbrecht 2001 Riesling Herrenweg de Turckheim (Alsace) – Medium-density metal-jacketed pear and mineral dust. Fully mature and quite good. Dry as a dried-out bone in the desert. (1/11)

Herrenweg the owl

Zind-Humbrecht 2001 Riesling Herrenweg de Turckheim (Alsace) – Indice 1, which means dry. Now featuring: beautiful minerality, the kind that may not be unique to Alsace, but does mark it. What I mean here is the creamed-iron form, salty and free-electron at the surface, but dense and liquid at the core. Intense and vibrant. Perfectly mature. To this known ZH-detractor, Humbrecht does his best work at the extremes of dry and sweet, and it’s the rest that is too often soupy and leaden. (12/10)

Zind-Humbrecht 2001 Riesling Herrenweg de Turckheim (Alsace) – More aged than the previous bottle, with the dusty and salt intact, but a lot of erosion from the foundation. It’s still nice, but other bottles have been better. (1/11)

Owl service

Zind-Humbrecht 2001 Riesling Herrenweg de Turckheim (Alsace) – Somewhere in here, there’s a finely-poised, iron-rich, balanced expression of riesling. Unfortunately, it’s layered in lush coverlets of velour and gravity. Not, as ZH’s wines go, at all bad. Quite nice, actually. But way too heavy for its inherent presence. (10/10)

And the wind cries Hunawihr

Zind-Humbrecht 1997 Pinot Gris Hunawihr Clos Windsbuhl (Alsace) – Very sweet, as befits the vintage. Intense pear syrup and spice jacketed in metal plate armor. A touch hot and short – also unfortunate vintage artifacts – but this is holding on better than many of its fellow ‘97s, especially given the grape. Drink up, though. (7/10)

Goldert is better than goldust

Zind-Humbrecht 1994 Muscat Goldert (Alsace) – Getting rieslingish, with green grapes dominant. Light and pert, but unquestionably thinning. Linear, acidic, and a little sweet. The finish is salty. Fifteen years was probably a little long to hold this wine. (12/09)

Zind wagon

Zind-Humbrecht 2005 Riesling (Alsace) – 12% on the label, indice 1. That means dry, or at least dry to the taste. Is it? Yes, more or less; there’s so much intensity than there’s a definite sensation of sweetness, but the wine never tastes sugar, and the finish is quite dry. Otherwise, the dominant features of the wine are a laser-like acidity, the naked scent of sweaty lemongrass, and a hugeness that indicates a wine pushed to its limits. Is this a good or bad thing? It always depends, and this wine is as much on the fence as is this taster. (9/08)

Existential Hengst

Zind-Humbrecht 1997 Gewurztraminer Hengst (Alsace) – Rich and very intense, with lychees – perhaps with a touch of tinned quality to them – making the classic aged-gewurz shift to bacon. There’s also roasted cashew, papaya, and guava…exotic notes for an already exotic grape, and no doubt a result of the way this grape and terroir have been pushed to, and perhaps a little beyond, their limits. This is also seen in the wine’s powerful sweetness, and “powerful” here is meant more as a description of the intensity of the sugar than the quantity of it, because there’s a quite acceptable balance – especially for a ’97 – marred only by a shading of surplus alcohol, and this allows a throbbing, powdery minerality (stones and coal) to show through. This is a highly tactile wine, its texture a little over-shared and slutty, but I like it nonetheless. As for maturity, I see no reason it won’t hold for a good while, but I’d think about drinking it soon for maximum impact. And I mean that last word wholeheartedly. (2/09)

We can only grow the way the Windsbuhl

Zind-Humbrecht 1994 Gewurztraminer Hunawihr Clos Windsbuhl (Alsace) – Big & rich (save a cashew, ride a lychee), very spicy, and somewhat sweet…but it handles it all with balance. Orange peel candy and dried peach with a touch of heat on the finish, which is shorter than I’d like; it’s the wine’s most obvious flaw. (2/08)

An ill Zind blows no good

Zind-Humbrecht 2002 “Zind” (Alsace) – Heavy and, truth be told, tasting very much like chardonnay grown in Alsace. The flavors are fair enough, with a heavy metallic edge to the weighty, spiced stone fruit. And there’s some acidity, balanced with a little bit of residual sugar. But mostly, it’s powerful to the point where you’ll want some sort of palate version of earplugs. (2/08)

Past tense of Writenberg

Zind-Humbrecht 1995 Pinot Gris Rotenberg “Vendange Tardive” (Alsace) – Massively rich and lusciously textured, but not over the top. More pear than spice, with crystalline minerality, if this wine has a flaw it’s that it too stridently hits its best notes, and subsequent glasses eventually become a bit much. In more normal quantities, however, the wine is fabulous. While there’s plenty of residual sugar, the wine is not at all about its sweetness, but rather about intensity. It could be held longer, but I’m not sure there’s enormous benefit in doing so; the fruit will recede as the spice grows, but the weight will eventually become an issue as those qualities diverge. (10/07)