Riesling Grand Cru Brand 2002

Description of the wine Riesling Grand Cru Brand 2002

The Brand Grand Cru is a large Grand Cru in Alsace, covering a characteristic granitic soil, called granite biotite, meaning very rich in black and white mica. The black mica is the interesting one, not necessarily present in all the granitic soils. It produces small quantities of high surface clay (very interesting to fixate the minerals in the soil) under the action of organic life in the soil. Not all the sections in the Brand have this black mica, but through the years, we manages to own parcels in the Brand, Steinglitz and Schneckelsbourg part of the Brand, rich in this black mica. In 2002, the ripeness was very high. The grapes developed botrytis in October, resulting in late harvest maturity. The fermentation almost went to a stop in winter, and surprisingly (rare at this maturity level) started again in spring to ferment a lot of the residual sweetness. This wine should have been a classic VT, but after the long fermentation, we decided not to call it VT. The yields were very small, and for the first time since 1994, we didn’t produce a Turckheim riesling.