2018 Domaine Weinbach Riesling Cuvee Colette Alsace France 750 ml

Weinbach’s Cuvée Colette is one of the great insider secrets in profound white wine. A rich, textured, dry Riesling that can stand toe-to-toe with Grand Cru White Burgundy, the 94-point Colette comes from one of Weinbach’s most cherished parcels and remains a favorite of top sommeliers because it offers outstanding value—all due to a few rogue vines that defy labeling conventions.

Alsace’s Schlossberg is one of the world’s greatest vineyards. The first site to be awarded Grand Cru status in Alsace, it’s a steep, granitic hillside that towers over the town of Kayserberg. This is the home of Domaine Weinbach, one of the most iconic estates in the region.

At the warmer bottom of the vineyard, there’s a section that Weinbach has long prized, which yields powerful dry Riesling, full of texture and explosive aromatics. It’s now reserved exclusively for their Cuvée Colette—a 94-point triumph in the 2018 vintage and a Wine Enthusiast Cellar Selection.

It seems counterintuitive that a wine like the Colette might represent a standout deal, given how lauded the wine is, but a few rows of Weinbach’s prized parcel are just outside the official vineyard boundary—so including them in the wine means the Cuvée Colette can’t be labeled Grand Cru. 

The easy thing to do would be to blend the grapes from those vines into another wine, but Weinbach believes in the quality of the entire parcel—and so Cuvée Colette trades at a significant discount to its sister, the $85 Cuvée Ste. Catherine, from just up the slope.

From the first swirl, it’s obvious that this belongs at the same table as top tier white Burgundy and the best dry whites of the Loire. There’s an orchard of fruit, including white Saturn peaches, bright Asian pears, and Meyer lemons, all bound up with flinty minerals and lemon verbena. The palate continues along the same lines, with a powerful intensity and dizzying complexity. The minerality is even more pronounced, with a nearly salty edge, and flavors of Makrut lime and ginger complement the sleek stone fruit before a long finish.

Cuvée Colette is named after the late Colette Faller, the longtime matriarch of the family that has owned Domaine Weinbach since 1898. As you’d expect given the emotional weight of the wine, no expense is spared in its production.

The vines are pruned short for low yields and high quality, while biodynamic farming improves soil health and ensures that the grapes reach their fullest potential. Once in the winery, the star treatment continues, with a slow, gentle, whole-cluster pressing—ideal for maintaining the delicate aromatics of the wine.

Fermentation is done with native yeasts, a further step to help the stellar terroir express itself, before eight to ten months of aging in large, old, oak vats builds complexity and texture without woody flavors. The result is one of the iconic wines of Alsace—a bottling that befits the legend it pays tribute to.