Rolly Gassmann "Pinot Noir" Alsace, France 2019

FROM BOUTIQUE WINES:

THE WINE: Pierre Gassman, champion of biodynamic cultivation in Alsace, insists on late harvesting and lengthy cellaring after bottling, creating amply sweet yet balanced styles. In-depth knowledge of the family estate (a complex mosaic of limestone and marls) and pursuit of low yields promote precise expression of different terroirs. Harvest is done by hand, as most things at the estate. The philosophy that guides the Rolly Gassmann family centers on as little interference with the vines as possible, rigorous selection of grapes, and the most careful handling of both harvest and vinification to produce wines of the highest quality and specificity. The fruits for this Pinot Noir come from the Rodern area. The grapes are picked at optimum ripeness, 32 days long maceration, indigenous yeast, daily remontage for the first three days, thereafter one pigeage a day until racking. There is no wood aging given the age of the foudres used. Aged over 11 months in old foudres before bottling.

THE PRODUCER: The wines from Domaine Rolly Gassmann are the fruit of the meeting of light, earth and subsoil, expressed by the plant cycle of the vine, undoubtedly allowing the miraculous meeting of men and wine. This is how the humility engendered by respect for nature allowed the transmission of a family know-how which found its wine roots as early as 1611. From generation to generation, we have always been independent winegrowers and harvesters in the heart of Alsace in Rorschwihr.

The Estate covers 51 hectares of vines, cared for and maintained by a team of 10 people. We make every effort in the systematic search for a balance between the biological activity of the subsoil and the growth of the vine in order to obtain the most subtle and complex grape possible. All the interventions and works are directly linked to the different cosmic rhythms (astral conjunctions, planetary oppositions for example) and by means of various preparations and plants such as nettle, chamomile, horsetail, valerian, bark oak, the dandelion flower … It is these homeopathic infusions and doses that give us the possibility of intervening in the most natural way possible against external aggressions while preserving the intrinsic qualities of the fruit which represents the relationship between the living world of nature and the influence of the universal environment. It is therefore all this conjunction of factors that makes it possible to find in the wine the expression of the identity of the terroir and the particularism of each vintage.