2014 Trimbach Pinot Gris Réserve Alsace 750 ml

Few names are as closely associated with Alsace as Trimbach, whose 2014 Pinot Gris Réserve is a shimmeringly clear expression of what makes the region so important. It’s a 93-point beauty that vibrates with stone fruit, spice, and flowers.

Clinging to steep hillsides and rolling along the gentler slopes of Alsace, this region in far eastern France is a storybook place to grow wine. Church steeples pierce the sky in villages that look lifted directly from a Hollywood set, and the wine is among the most crystalline and expressive in the entire country. 

Wine Enthusiast, in its 93-point review, loved the 2014’s “lifted, ethereal note of bitter almond [that] suggests the beginnings of evolution,” but also praised its “streamlined concentrated core of flawless dryness and precise bundled freshness.” That sort of balance is rare in any wine, much less one that’s priced to open on a spontaneous Tuesday night. Vinous adored its “intriguing aromas of lemon, green apple, pear and smoke [that] are lifted by notes of lavender and cinnamon.” And Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate pointed out that it’s an “intense Pinot that is great to have with food thanks to its salinity and grip.”

On that last point we especially concur: Great Pinot Gris from Alsace is one of the most food-friendly wines in the world. It’s the same variety as Italian Pinot Grigio, but often brings a richer texture and more generous fruit and spice notes. It pairs just as easily with aromatically complex Thai dishes as it does with the classic fried ones of the American South. 

This particular bottling, the 2014 Réserve Pinot Gris, finds the perfect sweet spot between complexity, energy, and age-worthiness. Indeed, at nearly six years of age, it’s just starting to show the ambrosial depth that maturing Pinot Gris tends to acquire, yet it still has plenty of youthful fruit coursing through every sip.

Trimbach has been helping to define the picturesque region since 1626, and today, 13 generations later, the wines of Alsace are in a very real sense synonymous with the family name. From the incredibly long-lived Clos Sainte Hune—widely considered to be one of the true jewels of French wine—to ready-to-drink bottlings of Riesling, Pinot Blanc, Gewurztraminer, and more, all of Trimbach’s wines reflect the centuries of knowledge and passion that have allowed them to remain so indispensable for nearly 400 years.