36: Samplanting og terroir i Alsace med Dom. Marcel Deiss

Her er veldig velkommen til en ny fotogaster presoder fra Vinforum, Norges første og fremste Vinbagasin. Mitt namn er Tommy Andresen, og i dag har vi fått besøk i studio fra Frankrike, när dere bestemte Alsas. Demen Marcel Deis har vært en foregångsfigur i regionen med fokus på biodynamisk urbruk, samplanting og sterk til tervar avtrykk i vindesine. Og i dag har vi med oss Marie-Len Christopharo, som er Vinmaker, hos Marcel Deis. Marie-Len, thank you so much for taking the time, and welcome to the podcast. Thank you very much. How are you? I'm fine, thank you. Just arrived in Oslo yesterday, was it? Yes, yesterday late. Late yesterday. Just ready to start with you. That's nice. Thank you so much. We have a lot to talk about today. I'm quite curious about several subjects, so I suggest we just get right into things. Would you mind starting things off by giving us a quick recap of the history of the domain? Of the domain, Marcel Deis. Sure. So the domain Marcel Deis was created by Marcel, who was the grandfather of Jean-Michel, my husband, and of course now Mathieu, the son of Jean-Michel is managing the winery, but you know it's in the family since four generations. And that's when the domain was starting. Marcel was an officer, and when he retired from the army, he started to make wine, because his wife had a restaurant, so she needed wine, and he started to make wine for the restaurant of his wife. Oh yeah, that's nice. Yes, that's a beautiful history, because for us, of course, the relation with the restaurant is still very important. And definitely we like to share what we do to finally have wine with food, and that's a main point. The domain was starting slowly from two hectares at the beginning, and now we have 45 hectares. It's still managed in the same idea to work 45 hectares, like if we had only two. With the same focus, with the same exesions, we try to make wine that show the terroir in the best way. So it's a hard work, but that's our passion. How are the roles at the domain today? It's one person in charge of the seller and one of the vineyards, or how do you define where it is? You know, it's a family winery, so, of course, 45 hectares, I mean, it's a big domain. And, of course, Mathieu is in charge of, I would say, taking care of everything is, of course, making the wine. In the vineyard, he is managing the vineyard with his father, Jean-Michel, who is still very present. I'm more in charge of business parts, by the way, we are all acknowledges, so we all know what is about the wine, and we also taste all together. And, of course, try to advance in the best way all together. Can you explain the philosophy behind the domain's strong focus on coal planting? Complanting for us is something which is there in others, but not only in others, it's something that exists in the vineyards since human has been starting to make vineyards. I mean, it's almost 10,000 years that human make wine, and since always, the vineyards were planted with grapes, but different kind of grapes. Grapes adapted to a region, because since a long time, grape variety have been traveling, and people have been traveling with grape varieties, trying to develop them in different places. So that's definitely how vineyards have developed, moved in different regions, different parts of the world. And this idea that the grapes travel, the grapes adapt to different places, is still for us true today. We really believe that grapes have to be moving with the ears, with the climate, of course, now, because climate change impacts a lot the reflection about the grapes. But there has always been an adaptation to the grapes. And when Jean-Michel started to make wine, the vineyard, planted by his grandfather, was more or less planted with pure grapes. As everybody knows us at this time, so in the 80s, others wine was definitely about pure grapes, which was more or less recent, because all vineyards, which are now a hundred years old, all vineyards used to be mixed everywhere. And that was, of course, something that stops when the technology appears in the literature. So around the 60s, in the 60s, we started to develop clones of grapes, and these clones have been developed to answer to the demand of a producer, to help them to make a wine in the best way. So for some of them, it was to produce grapes with small yields. For some of them, it was to produce grapes with bigger yields, and unfortunately Alsace had a demand to produce big yields. And then the selection of grapes was in this direction to produce higher yields than what was produced old grapes. And then the clones produced in the region were able to produce more than 100 hectolitos per hectare, which was maybe not the same in Burgundy or in the over French regions, because Burgundy had a demand to produce in average 68-tolitos per hectare, when Alsace wanted to produce more. And in the 60s, the development of a vineyard was in this direction to plant pure grapes, able to produce high volume, and to remove the old vineyards planted mixed. And of course, that was a moment where that was after the war. People wanted to have an easier life. They wanted to produce in comfortable way good crops. And finally, they just continued to plant these clones, just to make wine in the direction of the market. The market wanted to have big volume of easy drinking wine. And at the same time, Alsace was a region who started to develop wine about the grape variety, which was not at all the French direction, because in France, the wine normally talked about the place, but Alsace chose the direction of the grape. That was also historic reason, because Alsace had been German, and the German way was to talk about the grape variety. So Alsace started to make wine with the grape variety written on the label in majority, and then people had to remove the old vineyards planted with mix of grapes, just because there was no space for these old vines. And that's the market didn't accept these mix of grapes. So most of the people decided to remove the old vines, just because they were completely forgotten. And when Jean-Michel started to make wine, he was studying in Burgundy. He was learning how to make wine in Burgundy, and then he came back at home. And coming back at home, he wanted to make wine as he had learned in Burgundy. He wanted to express the terroir and try to decrease the yield from the vineyard, just to make strong terrible expression. Doing that, he was just realizing that terroir expression was completely the opposite of the grape variety. And that was of course a problem, because when you have the vineyard planted with pure grapes, where you have to write the grape on the label, and that finally this taste of label has to be recognizable, it's also very difficult to express the terroir at the same time, because the terroir is an expression which is the opposite of the grape. And that's hide the grape. That's finally the French concept of appellation. In the rest of France, the grape cannot be written on the label, because the grape is just to support to express the terroir. And of course, when you understand this philosophy, it's very difficult to be in a region where people choose to write the grape on the label and not the place. So that was one of the points, that was of course one of the challenge of Jean-Michel when he came back at home. And at the same time, he came back at home trying to make terroir wines. But also, he had these very old vines. He had a few old vines, not a lot, because of course these old vines were slowly disappearing, but he had some of these very old vines. In Grand Cru vineyard, called Chunambour, which is a very beautiful Grand Cru. And this vineyard was for him just like amazing, because this vineyard was a mix of many grapes with a lot of old ristling, but not only of course. It was a mix of Sylvanor, of Chasslav, Pinot Blanc, of Giverstraminer. Well, anyway, all grapes of ours. And all these grapes, officially, should rip at different moments. That's what we all learn at school, that all the grapes have the different moments of maturity, but in the reality, in the Chunambour, which is a late vineyard, all these grapes were ripe at the same moment. How is it possible that all these grapes are able to rip at the same moment and so late in the season, when normally, for example, Sylvanor is harvested in the plain at the beginning of harvest. On the Chunambour, the Sylvanor, four weeks later, was still beautiful and not rotten. So that was showing him that another physical chore is possible, that maybe this old vine, which are mixing a lot of grapes, express the terroir with more complexity, with more personality, with more deepness. Then the modern vineyards, that were planted side by side, because we had, of course, at the same time, some modern vineyards planted with clones, producing far too much. We had to make green harvest every year to decrease the yields, but in reality, the result was never as good as the old vine. And then, quickly, Michel understood that something was wrong in the modernity, that finally, the old way of planting vine was giving everything we need, was giving more complexity, more deepness. And he understood that he wanted to go back to this method. At the same time, it was also a moment where a bio-dynamic was starting to develop, and he was learning how bio-dynamic works, and he was starting to develop this in the vineyard. And of course, the concept of bio-dynamic is based on the question of bio-diversity, of balance between this ecosystem, and that was for us making sense with these old vines, which were a big ecosystem, complex vineyards. And we understood that all together were the direction that we should have been continuing to follow, and that from a modernity, at one moment, started to make wine in a completely different way, where you choose what you plant, where you decide one type of grape, which has to be the majority, which has to be a clone. So, something fragile in reality, because when you plant 100% of one clone, it means that all the vines are the same, they are all in competition, they use the same nutrients, they face the weather condition in the same way. So, that's very difficult, because they cannot protect each other, and that's, of course, increasing the dependence to chemistry, and that's a ring, actually. You start by clones, then you need chemicals, and then, of course, it's an industry. So, it's easier to work with the biodynamics when the vineyard is co-planted? Sure. Of course, for us, it was really a base of bringing to the vineyard more resistance, more consistency, and also better reaction to the life. In a way, it's like every day, it's a different day, every year has a different climate, and all these grapes altogether work better. So, this was in the '80s, was it? That was in the '80s? Yeah, two hectares at the moment. A bit more, because he has two hectares, was in 1950, but in the '80s, we had more or less between '15 and '20 hectares. Right, but he also planted some vineyards in the '80s and up until now? Of course, we continue to plant vineyard and to develop and to get more vines, of course, definitely. How did he choose the grape composition for each of the new plantings? Choosing grape composition can be made in many ways. First of all, it's a feeling. You know, it's a personal feeling. It's a way just to understand what is a terroir. And, especially when we get a new terroir, we start to taste all the vines produced in this terroir. We try to understand the terroir in the best way. So, very often, what people around us plant is a good indication of what happens well. But sometimes, it's not true. Sometimes, people choose a grape in majority, which doesn't work well for us, which is a mistake for us, then we decide to change this grape. It happens in the Grand Crimenbore, where most of the people have giverstraminar, but it's a place which is very hot, making tiny quines. And we really believe that giverstraminar is too aromatic, it's a bit too heavy to express this terroir, so we changed and we choose to plant something else. So, yes, of course, we start to plant what seems to be adapted to the region, but as well to the microclimate, you have to fill it. You know, each place is a different landscape. It's a different emotion, so you have to fill it. And there's also the question of the soil. Depending the type of soil, you know that some grapes will work well, some of them will probably work less well, so we need to understand what could be adapted depending the soil. You know, the soil has in a way like a classification of power from the light soil, which are sandy soil, to the heavier soil like limestone, and then to the most powerful soil, which are clay or volcanic soil. Then you can plant, I would say, more powerful, more aromatic grapes when the terroir becomes more powerful, more heavy, more dominant to the taste of a grape. This is something I would like to go a bit deeper into, because you have a lot of different cuvees, and the grape mix of each cuvee varies from vineyard to vineyard, from soil type to soil type. Would you please walk us through the different cuvees of the domain, focusing on the differences between each terroir or vineyard, let's say like soil types, exposure, altitude, and so on? Yes, sure. We will focus more on the single vineyard and Grand Cru, so there are many cuvees at the domain. Of course we like to separate them, because the landscape has such a complexity, as this is like a patchwork of terroir, one of the most complex, probably in France, and of course for us it's really important to show this diversity and to separate each territory. Of course it's something that happens since a long time, because what we write on the label, the name of a cuvee, is the name of a cadastra, the cadastra is the map of a land that was designed by peasants thousand years ago. Thousand years ago peasants made a map with separation between the different vineyards, giving you name to each vineyard, and this map is still used, it's still true. The separation they made between the different terroir is still used, because it's still relevant from the terroir. So that's of course something we need to remember, because finally terroir is there since a long time, it will be there, I hope, in the future of course for a long time still. So what we show today, what we talk about today, is not our responsibility, I mean the responsibility of peasants thousand years ago, and that's a beautiful gift they did. So we have in our 45 hectares something like eight, primary crew, now five, primary crew. The primary crew start with the lightest terroir, lightest kind of soil, it's long and bad, it's granite soil, which is the rock of the mountain, it's terroir, which is facing the south. So it's warm in terms of exposition, but the soil is cool, because this granite is really the rock of the mountain, and this granite containing a lot of crystals of silica is usually producing wine with strong verticality. We like to describe the terroir effect as an architecture. Each type of soil gives to a wine kind of architecture, which is universal. And it's true here in Alsace for our terroir, but it's true if you go in any of our region of the world with the same terroir. So the granite, we believe, are vertical, thin, very vibrant, very delicate, so that's definitely a kind of soil, where we don't want to plant give your seminar, because it would hide this finesse, this delicate expression. And of course, that's definitely the most elegant and delicate wine of a range, because the question of the body is not like in the other places. That's a one with a very light body, but with a very strong energy. That's a one which moves you, is like electricity, more than body. So that's quite nice, because it's something unique in the granite. How does the grape composition look like for this cave? So for this cave, for example, it's a place where we like to use the base of hisling and pino family, pino gris, pino noir, pino blanc, pino bero, or pino, because pino variety, it's a variety that makes mutation naturally. So that's easy to plant the mix. There's also a little bit of muscat, different kind of muscat, muscat, petit gran, muscat lelsas, hose, blanc, so that's diversity of grape. The base being risling and pino family, which is not too aromatic and make wine with a delicate structure, anyway, that's help to transmit this delicate structure. Then we have another single vineyard with a crystal in rock, meaning rock from the mountain parts, that's Engelgarten, which is a gravel soil. It's a soil coming from the ancient bed of a river, and this river is transported, transporting different kind of rocks, which are all very round, it's pebble. They have been polished by the water, and they have been deposed at the bottom of a village, in a bed which is 30 meters of deepness. That's again a very warm place, because it's looking at the south, it's a plate, it's a plateau, but still it's a very cool and refreshing wine, because the soil brings the coolness, the minerality, the saltiness. So the texture is a bit smoother than the granite, because you have a bit more clay mixed with the stone, but in reality it's still a vertical, very salty, very refreshing type of wine. It's a bit richer and broader in style than the longer body. It's a bit more body here, and they finally have a very balanced balance between finesse and volume, that's a wine in the range, which is since a long time. Maybe the wine that most of the restaurants will buy, because it's a wine that will adapt to any kind of food, it's very versatile. And that's also the first terroir that was vinified by Marcel, the grandfather, he started to make this wine for the restaurants of his wife. And then, very nearby to Engelgarten, there's a geology fault, the soil changes completely and move to a limestone, which is a red limestone, it's a Jurassic limestone. This one was formed in the bottom of the sea, because Alza's long time ago had a sea, it was a warm sea, with a tropical weather, with a lot of energy, dinosaurs and big animals and palm trees. This soil still contains a strong energy, it's also containing a lot of iron, that's why it's a red soil. It's a hillside, which is looking at the south, so it's very warm, and because the soil is clear, it's reflecting a lot the hot temperature to the grapes. And on Rottenberg, the wines are usually much more fruity, much more ripe, in the sense that the level of sugar is higher than in Engelgarten, because the hot temperature brings higher level of maturity, but still with a very good acidity in this place. But in a way, if you compare with Engelgarten, which is nearby, the wines are opposite, because Rottenberg has more volume, we used to say horizontal, because the wine has a density, it starts with a broad texture, but still finesse, still good acidity behind. And more than all, it's very luminous, it's a wine that shows the sunshine, that talks about tropical weather. You know, it's like an explosion of sun, you drink it and you have a sunshine appearing in your mind, that's the Jurassic limestone. You know, comparison with gravel, with granite, coming from the montagne, so one is a wine from the tropical site, and the other one was a wine from the montagne site. So you see, it's very easy, just to understand where the soil was formed, the wine told about it. Because finally the wine is just the history in the bottle, I mean, how to make geology, talking about history, but you can drink it, and just understand it, in the bottle, in your glass, that's, for me, just amazing, to drink a wine and to think that it's the history of the place that makes me taste. And if you look at the soil, it will tell you, because the rock, talk about the taste, the color of the rock gives you already the idea of the taste. And we like to make the link between the stone, the taste of a wine in the dark, we close the eyes, and we see the colors coming in your brain. And that's linked to the energy of a rock. So that's, for us, very important to tell everybody that the terroir finally is about nature. Maybe we have forgotten that the wine comes from the soil, and the rock is the first thing that we have to look at to understand the taste. And that's very easy. It's not something for specialists. Everybody can see and understand this. I have my rocks, but nobody will see them. We can take a picture and add them to the episode. Sure, sure, we will make it so that you can really see the difference of the soil, and that talk about the wine itself. That's perfect. And then still in our village around us, another terroir of limestone. It's called Schofwegg. This one is still a hillside, but it's looking at the east. It's looking at Germany, it's looking at the other side. And it's a warm limestone, but coming from the bottom of the sea, that was more superficial. So the sea was not deep enough to compact the rock, and the rock is extremely soft and easy to break. It's like powder. Almost like powder. It's called Alignan, and that's coming from the period which is the Kretace, the same period than Champagne, for example, that was bringing the chalk. So you know, that's very porous soil, and this soil brings to the wine something strange. It's a texture which is very powdery. It also brings tannins. It also brings things which are extremely strange, which are at the same time tannins, but also a lot of dry fruits. And flowers like brioche, so when you think of that kind of flavors, of course you imagine that maybe the barrels will make these flavors. But it's not the barrel. It's really the terroir. That makes tannins, brioche, all this atmosphere. In reality, we have decided to use barrels to make the wine, just to match with these natural flavors of the wine, but more than all to help the tannins to become softer with an irration. So that's also linked to how to work with the vineyard to express this special personality coming from the rock. So that's one of the only vineyards where we use a barrel to make the wine because it has natural tannins. That's so fake. So it's large used barrels, or? We use barrels, we just burgundy barrels. Finally we have been using for a long time 100% barrels, but recently we also introduce a part of eggs, sandstone eggs, just to balance the effect of the barrels. We have something more reductive in a way. By the way, eggs are still bringing air, but a bit less than the barrel, so it's just also mixed of vats, just to face the expression of the terroir. Well, that's shoved, which is quite unique in terms of personality, and then very close to shoved, there is another terroir called Grasberg, which is on the top of the same hill, but it's a Norfolk's position. So Grasberg is a really very cool place. It's the highest and the coolest vineyard we have. It's the one that thrives the latest, because it's thriving very slowly. And as a matter of fact, in this place we find again the Jurassic limestone, the soil formed in the tropical era, and because of the Jurassic limestone, the wine shows a tropical taste, which is even stronger than in Rottenberg that was a south-facing vineyard. It's stronger because the maturation comes very slowly, and it's protecting this tropical taste. And Grasberg is so exotic, and at the same time it's a place that has a strong acidity, and because it's a very poor soil, it's the top of the hill, there's no earth, it's only rocks. It's a very poor soil that brings slow fermentation that will never finish completely fermenting the sugar. So Grasberg is a semi-sweet wine, just because fermentation never ends, fermentation never stops. How much residual are we talking about? Between 20 and 30 grams. By the way, the acidity is so strong that the balance makes a wine which is finally more fruity than really sweet. And that's always a question, people never know if it's sweet or not, just because it's so fruity that you can forget that it's sweetness. So that's Grasberg, which is quite unique, we call it the sun of a range, and that's of course the one which is the most sunny of the range. By the way, it's the more cool place of the vineyard, so that's strange, because the wine has such a tropical expression. And the other terroir that comes, I would say, in a position to Grasberg is Bourque, and Bourque is another vineyard which is more south, but it's more close to the forest. It's a very cool soil, it's a soil that rips also very late in the season, but it's a soil of clay. It's a very black, heavy clay coming from the ice age, and of course ice age brings wine which are very dark, very cool, very deep and austere. But Bourque, which is at the same time a place where we get humidity, because there's a mountain, there's also river passing just in the bottom. Bourque is producing a little bit of number, which is also making some sweet wine, but in a more austere way, more mineral, more marked with the flavours of iodine, of pencil, of graphite, that's very strange wine, but also beautiful. Just be opposite of Grasberg, south facing but austere wine. But it always has the botritis in France every year. Less and less, but it still has. And the last terroir from our area, from our village, is Grünspil. Grünspil is also sort of clay, which is, of course, this heavy, cool clay coming from ice age, bringing to the wine power volume density. But Grünspil is a south facing vineyard, which is very warm, so bringing high maturity always, and at the same time, the wines are dark, austere, very deep and mineral. And that's definitely one of the plays where the last years we have been thinking about how to adapt the expression of the terroir to the climate change, because climate change means even higher maturity. And that's one of the plays where we have introduced maceration to face the warm vintages, and to help to ferment more easily the sugar, because the level of sugar increase, of course significantly with warm temperature. And maceration helps us to ferment it completely dry, and to keep freshness, adding more bitterness, a bit of tenings in the structure. But the terroir makes wines which are huge, powerful, very complex, very earthy as well, and definitely dark in the taste. In a position of a Jurassic limestone that makes suny wines, Grünspil makes dark wine, and also earthy wines. So that's also very interesting when you compare the texture, because you have an earthy texture here linked to the soil as well. So that's for the single vineyard, what we call parceller, and now we can talk about the Grand Cru. The Grand Cru, they are until now for them. The first one is called Schlossberg. Schlossberg is one of, I would say, maybe most famous Grand Cru from others, because it was the first Grand Cru to be classified 50 years ago. So it was classified in 85. And the Grand Cru Schlossberg is a crystal in rock, it's a terroir of granite, which is a hillside, which is at the end of a long valley, the valley of Kaisersberg, bringing a lot of wind. As you know, when you have valley, you have, of course, a lot of deep faults in the terroir that will help the roots to go very deep, and to bring to the wine power and consistency in the taste. And this is a pink granite, which is really the face of the hill. And that's a very high terroir in altitude, it's more than 350 m high, and there are small terraces, very steep terraces. It's very hard to work, because you have no space. It's all in terraces, and it's difficult to stand up, it's difficult to work, it's difficult to grow for the vine. The vine's are very weak, they have almost no earth, no nutrients, it's very rocky and very granitic. And also it's looking at the south, so it's a very luminous place, but it's a cool place in a way, because of the salt, because of the wind of the valley. So that's definitely places which are wrapping also late in the season, but they also always produce wine with the verticality, with saltiness, with sharp texture, salted after taste as well. And definitely this kind of rocks bring to the wine at the same time finesse, but also density. The wine are very dense, very concentrated, especially the warm vintage, the last vintage is like 22, 23, where so warm that the grapes had almost no juice, they were very concentrated, less than 20 hectolitos per hectare. So it's crazy to harvest grapes which are so small, and that bring a wine so luminous, so fin, so delicate. But with such a concentration, for me the texture of Schlossberg is grainy like the texture of the granite, you really feel it when you taste it. So definitely the finest and the brightest concrete that we have. And the Schlossberg is looking at another concrete, the concrete mombore, it's just in front of it, but it's more far in the plain. The concrete mombore is a different origin of salt, because it's a limestone that was formed in the bottom of a sea, so that's of course the opposite. And this limestone is rare, in others it's called oligosene, and oligosene limestone is limestone that was formed initially in the Jurassic, but that was broken and transported by the glacier and that became reformed and have a shape which is like a bowel. It's very round rock, and all the rocks are very smooth, like polished and used. Some are very small, some are very big, it's quite strange, it's a beautiful kind of soil. And the wine from this kind of soil are extremely linked to the shape of a stone. It's a full-bodied, very dense, but also polished. The shape is like a bowel. Mombore is something extremely dense and powerful, bone dry, always, but very powerful. And if you understand that Mombore and Schlossberg are just two kilometers of distance, but it's a world of difference. Most of the time, when people taste Mombore, they think to Burgundy, and that's not strange because this kind of soil is something which is very classical in Burgundy. For example, the bottom of Morsow is also made of oligosene, that's the same kind of soil in Morsow. So of course, Mombore has something of Burgundy. We used to say it's between others and Burgundy, and that's definitely the terroir that makes this strong taste and this powerful shape. So that's the two first concrete of the domain that we can say they're always dry, and definitely the style is consistent. And there are two concrete, which are late concrete. The first one is Altenberg de Bergheim, which is the concrete from our village, which is the historic concrete of the family. And concrete, Altenberg, is a terroir, which is extremely warm. It's a hillside, separated by the voge mountain. A complex soil, mix of geology, based on clay, which is of course a limestone and clay with a humidity, so it's small in reality. It's a small containing a lot of humidity, a lot of water. And this is a key point for Altenberg, because Altenberg is at the same time very hot, because it's looking at the south. It's protected from the wind, because there is no valley around. And of course warm and humid means that it develops a number rod every year, even with climate change. I would say Altenberg is one of the latest terroir, where we get every year number rods, because the humidity is part of the soil. And it's. Altenberg is a wine, which is like an explosion of fruits. It's so charming. It just takes you in his home. And just. OK, make a big hug. It's really the wine that makes you happy. You know, you can drink Altenberg at any moment. You feel always just happy and just comfortable. So it's difficult to describe, because if you have at the same time richness, lots of complexity, but also lightness, it seems to be easy. You know, you can taste it and say, "Oh, it's a good wine." Maybe you forget that it's a great wine, because it's so easy and charming and so comfortable. Well, that's Altenberg. It's like a dancer, that's dance, it seems to be so gracious and so beautiful that it seems to be easy, but it is not. But I need to get your point here. In the reality, you know, that's always the thing that seems to be the more easy, which are the most complicated to make in one point. So Altenberg is like this. And also Altenberg is the Grand Cru where we have been fighting for many years to change the rules in the Appalachian, because the Grand Cru that have been classified in the 80s have been classified with the idea that they have to be planted with one grape only, a pure. And that this grape had to be written on the label, which is not obliged in the rest of Alza's Appalachian, but the Grand Cru had to be planted with pure grapes. And that was not possible for us. We couldn't accept it. So we have been fighting for 10 years to change the rules. And for Altenberg, only for Altenberg, we won and could change the Appalachian and introduced in 2005 the possibility to mix 13 different grape varieties in this Grand Cru. And the same year, we also changed the rules for Alza's Grand Cru in the idea that the name of a grape was not obliged anymore on the label, which was for us victory, because we couldn't understand how it was obliged to write the grape on the Grand Cru, which is definitely the place where the terroir is so strong that whatever you plant will take the same, more or less. And the idea of terroir, so that was very important for us anyway. So Altenberg is definitely carrying this challenge, this fighting, around complementation and the idea of terroir for us. And the last Grand Cru, which is definitely one of the most complex, one of the most historic for me, Grand Cru from Alza, is the Grand Crucien Enbure. Maybe a bit less known than some great terroir from Alza's, but in reality, the Grand Crucien Enbure is far the Grand Cru that was since a long time the most reputated, because it's a concrete that can age forever. Grand Crucien Enbure is a one that you can keep the whole life, if you want. The reason is that the soil is a soil of gypsium, and gypsium is a rock containing 40% of sulfur. And this sulfur containing the rocks, so it's a mull and gypsium, and the roots plunge in the gypsium, and they bring to the grape the capacity to be protected. Yes, naturally it produces. Naturally protected. So the vine is protected, the grapes make a wine which is naturally resistant to aeration. So the wine, of course, ferments, and is bottled with very little sulfur, because it doesn't need it, and more than all, it can age for 50 years and more. During the mid-age, this wine was 100 times more expensive than the others, because it could travel to Northern Europe, and it was transported by boat, and it was better at the arrival than at the departure. Just because it's needing air. And of course, the taste of Shunanbo is quite unique. It's probably another dimension. You cannot compare to anything else. It's maybe more about medicine or herbal tastes. That's really, really special. Shunanbo is difficult to describe, because that's for me a wine which is more about mystical aspect of wine. It's not a good wine, it's a mystical wine. Difficult to describe. It's like when you enjoy a church, you cannot describe what happens. The best wines are difficult to describe. Probably, yes. And that's as a matter of fact, where things started with complementation, that was worthwhile, that was showing us the way that makes sense, where things started, probably. Since the soil types are so different throughout, let's say, the Grand Cruze, you said the two dry versions of Schlossberg and Mambol. Are they a grape composition the same or is it different? No, it's a different composition, because it's so different soil. Of course, it's not the same grape that could match there. As Schlossberg is granite and granite salted, vertical, mineral, of course, Rizzling has a big part to play there. So it's, of course, a majority of Rizzling. When Mambol is more full-bodied, more dense, that's more the Pinot family that was chosen there. So it's a majority of Pinot grape, like a mix of Orpino, Grae, Noir, Blanc, Berog, Xeroir, even Mune, so we choose all Pinot family that we could find. There's also a little bit of Chardonnay, which is, of course, not legal, but it's also part of it, mixed with the rest. So that's definitely two different kinds of grapes, but which are for us really adapted to texture, to the volume. To the personality of the place. How do you keep the best expression of terroir through verification? What do you feel lifts and what overshadows the expression of terroir? I would say that it's important to not to overshadow, that's what we try to do as much as we can. Because, of course, you can do the best grapes as you can in the vineyard and kill the result in the cellar. So first of all, most of the wine are, of course, pressed. Some of them are macerated, but when it's pressed, it's pressed with a very slow process. So we press with whole bunches, we take time, each press is during more or less 10 hours, which is a long time. But it's the condition to press whole bunches and to take only the good part of a grape. And, of course, get juice where you can use everything. You don't need to remove anything, because everything you could take slowly is good to take. And then you don't need to remove, because when you need to remove something, you remove the good and the bad. So we need to take as much as we can and not remove. So it's a slow press, then it's fermentation with natural yeast. Again, we prefer natural yeast because we believe that they are part of the process, they are part of the terroir. Of course, we are not very efficient. Of course, we take the risk that it doesn't ferment well, but we assume it. It's also part of our philosophy to take risk, to get the best of the terroir. And also, we take the risk of time, because making a natural process is meaning that you take time to make the things. The fermentation is always long by us. It's sometimes three months, sometimes six months, sometimes a year, sometimes two years. But we wait as much as it's necessary to wait before we bottle. And then, of course, aging on the leaves after fermentation is also part of the process to help the wine to become mature, to take also strength from the leaves, because the leaves is a good nutrient for the wine. It's a good medicine in a way. The best medicine you can expect for the wine to be protected and able to have a long life. Then the wine is bottled after one year, most of the time, two years, sometimes. It's bottled with a light filtration, with a bit of sulfur. Most of the time, the process that we believe as being respecting as much as we can, the terroir. And sometimes, some terroir are more exotic or more, I would say, eccentric. And to get them, to understand them, we need a different way of finification. And this different way can be meserations. Sometimes we will let the skin with the juice to ferment, to ferment better. Because when you ferment with the skin, you will help the east, because you get more nutrients. So it will ferment much, much more easily than with a direct press. So sometimes it's a month of meseration, when it's made in tank. When it's made in amphorites up to ten months, so it depends on that. But that's something that we use for some terroir, which are warm, which are south exposed. And where the climate change will impact, I would say, the maturity increase the level of alcohol. And also decrease a little bit the acidity. So we believe that making a meseration will help to ferment completely. Bring more freshness with the tenants and the bitterness. So that's really a nice tool, especially with very warm contagious. So that's something that we adapt depending the condition. It's true that we like to use more meserations. Sometimes we make infusions, sometimes we add a part of whole bunches in a tank, which is like direct press, but we will let a part of entire grape in the tank just to give more nutrients. Sometimes it's a complete meseration, so it depends. Sometimes it's wood, shoveg, even mambour. Our terroir, where we will use barrels, because the terroir makes tannins. So it's important to shape tannins with more aeration during the fermentation. So barrels are the best way to make this. Sometimes it's eggs, because eggs will also aerate, but will bring less tannins. So there are a few tools to use, but for us these are tools which are a support to the expression of a terroir. There are tools that will help to underline the terroir expression. How do you approach global warming these days? What precautions are you taking and are you replanting with a different set of grapes now than before? Yes, we do, of course. Global warming is a very, very important question. We have been working about 15 years about it. We have been replanting some very old varieties from us. That disappeared, just because there were producing probably not enough. Or they had too low alcohol level, or they had too much acidity, whatever. In the reality there are 60 old varieties. And we could replant them, because they have been protected in a collection of grapes in South of France. So we could replant them, we could study them since 15 years. Of course some of them are beautiful, some of them are very interesting, some are less interesting. But we are now in a process to multiply them to replant them. Because we know that they are of course helping to prepare the change. It's allowed in the appellation, of course. So we take a risk doing that, but we think that the risk is necessary because we cannot wait. We are not able to wait. In the reality the appellation moves, but slowly. Already it's moving, because asa's appellation, I would say it's off-quiet, are introducing, I would say, new varieties to be added to the monoveritals. So it's about to be 15% of over varieties included in the main variety, which is not possible until now. Until now, if you make another one called "Risling", it has to be 100%. It will be 85% in the future. And they are introducing over varieties just to help people to prepare that. So that's meaning that what we do will be more or less allowed in the future for people who are in monoverital. Yes. And that's a good thing. Because we think that we need to prepare the vineyard. Slowly, we cannot replant everything, you know, remove everything and replant everything. It's not possible. But we can prepare and replant in the middle of our grapes, replace some by overs when they die. That's a good way to help vineyard to adapt slowly to a change. That's what we do since a while now to introduce over varieties planted in the middle. Which of the already allowed varieties of us is best suited for the climate change, you think? Some of them are adapted, like Pinot family. Pinot gris, Pinot noir, Pinot blanc, Silvana is well adapted. Risling and give your sraminer become very, very difficult. Depending where, not everywhere, but there are some places which are very hot, which are very dry. Where we see that give your sraminer and Risling are not able to face when it's too hot. So that's places where we know that we have to change. If these grapes are planted, we know that we have to replace them by something else. Of course, that's something that was already managed. By the way, there are also some places where we think that red wine will be more adapted than white wine. Because when it's very hot, the red variety is like Pinot noir. But maybe not only Pinot noir in the future are more adapted than white grapes. So that's also important to understand that Arthas is moving from a majority of white wine to more and more red wines in the warm places. So that's something which is obvious. We enlarge also a lot the plantation of red varieties. And we are also going to introduce south and round varieties mixed with Pinot noir to face in some places which are very warm. So the new plantation will be made with Pinot noir and Cihar and Gronash and Cunoise altogether just to try and to prepare as well these very warm places. But as of now, the red Covés are 100% Pinot noir. There are Pinot noir mostly with a little bit of white grapes, of course. It's all Pinot families, Pinot noir mostly and Pinot blanc, Pinot gré, Pinobero together. But it's, yes, of course, until now it's majority of Pinot and over grapes. We'll be focusing more on the red wines in the future, do you think? We are already focusing more and more on some places where we enlarge the part of red production. There's also a new Grand Cru, which is called the Marquine, where we have decided to plant only red grapes. So that's a new Cové, which is launched now at this moment. And it's called L'Alimit du Royum because we couldn't call it Grand Cru. It's not allowed to plant Pinot noir in most of the Grand Cru. So we have to declass it and call it with another name. But it's also a new red wine, which is very beautiful because it's. Well, in a place where this type of wine makes a good adaptation to the climate and the soil. And of course, we are developing the part of red wine. So we moved from 10% of a vineyard. We are now at 20% of a vineyard, Pinot noir. So that's definitely important. And it's nice because the red wine in Alsace are definitely very ripe. Our climate is very hot. That's definitely true. It's semi-continental, so we get always hot temperature. But still cool nights, which is cool. The difference between the day and the night are usually very important. So it's bringing to the white and to the red a good freshness, good acidity. And that's why we believe that it's a good thing to develop red wine because this red wine keeps freshness and that's making a nice balance for red. That's what we like anyway. We like this kind of red wine with freshness. That would be really interesting to follow the developments of Alsace and their rules and the steady state change that will happen with the different grape varieties coming in. Definitely. You know, Alsace is one of a French region where the climate change has the highest impact. We moved in 20 years of a month of precosity. So 20 years ago, harvest started beginning of October. A month of precosity, where in over region it's two weeks, sometimes three weeks. But for us it's a month. So you know it's huge. Yes. And that's also why Alsace has to move so quickly around these questions. And at the same time it's passionating. Who could have believed 20 years ago that we have to change the grape, that we have to adapt so much, that we have to enlarge the red wine plantations. So it's a crisis. But in another way it's very interesting to manage and to find solution to adapt and also protect this change, trying to reduce the impact that we have doing what we do. So it's full of questions. Yes. Exciting. It is. Thank you very much Marie Ellen. I think that's perfectly wraps up our talk. It's been a pleasure having you in the studio. I've learned quite a lot about soul types and different cubes of the domain. Thank you very much for inviting me. And hopefully you can come to Alsace to see that firsthand. That would be fantastic. Have a nice day in Oslo and have a nice trip home. Thank you. Bye bye.