Vins d’Alsace Rietsch
Winemaker
Jean-Pierre Rietsch
Type of agriculture
Organic
Vineyard area
12 ha
Country, Region, Subregion
France, Alsace, Mittelbergheim
The Rietsch estate has been in the family for seven generations; the land was previously used for tobacco and crops. It was Jean-Pierre’s parents who started cultivating vines in 1970s and handed them on to JP in 1987. The domaine is still very much driven by a family-led culture. Vines are raised naturally, with terroir at the heart of the operation and no use of chemicals. Sulphur is very rarely used in the cellar, only when absolutely necessary.
Wines are made with a low-pressure pneumatic press for a gentle extraction, with a slow fermentations and always indigenous yeasts. Having grown weary of teasing late-harvest, off-dry wines from his more aromatic grape varieties, Jean-Pierre was one of the first growers in the Alsace to experiment with macerating them.
Read up on our interview with Jean Pierre from June 2020 here.
For any UK wholesale and stock enquiries, please contact hello@winesutb.com
Wines
Balanced and direct Pinot Gris with great aromatic complexity. Deep 22!
From the marl-limestone soils of Mittelbergheim, including part of the Grand Cru Zotzenberg soil, as well as the calcareous-sandstone soil of Stierkopf in Mutzig.
Stein is a south-facing parcel next to Jean Pierre's house, particular in that it has a specific 'oolitic' limestone that Riesling loves. With a long ageing in Alsace tuns, this is one of JP’s fuller-throated whites, one to let unfold on the table over a long lunch of Paté en Croute, Bouchées à la Reine & Coq au Riesling.
Vibrant, juicy and direct - liquid ruby. Crunchy Pinot Noir lifted with a blast of Pinot Gris, great balance, an elevated crusher.
A generosity of fruit and acid from the warmer 2022 vintage - an easeful wine well-suited to its larger format.
Despite a scorching year, the 2022 reds remain buoyant and energetic, with a luminosity that belies such a warm vintage. Heady & lifted with JP's trademark acidity (thanks in no small part to late-summer rains prior to harvest) they manage to represent the best of both worlds: sun-kissed and fresh.
From vines 30 years old planted over grés in the Stierkopf parcel, near Mutzig, producing a wine of great concentration in 2022, struck through with a livewire acidity, profound balance and lift. Stierkopf always rewards both patience in the cellar and aeration in the glass.
Long and spicy, smokey mineral layers unwinding around a lychee-yuzu core, incredibly dynamic and driving - no fat!
The latest edition of the crémant is made from juice of the 2021 harvest, to which juice from 2022 has been added as spark. Consistently one of our all-time favourite sparkling wines. Exotic fruit and citrus up front, with a lively and saline attack which opens and continues to develop.
So easy to drink, the label doubles as a warning: if you can’t tell the difference between the wolf & the dog - you’ve had too much. Pithy citrus, lively, saline, elegant and full of energy.
This rare bird is a wine Jean Pierre only releases every two years. A perpetual cuvee of Savagnin Rose grown over clay-limestone in the Klevener de Heiligenstein. One that walks the line beautifully between the depth and complexity of an older vintage, lifted with the vitality of younger wines.
Zotzenberg, a grand cru behind the village of Mittelbergheim that boasts a complex calcareous Gres terroir, was made famous by it's Sylvaners, but produces Rieslings with profound salinity and length.