The 2004 Auxerrois Vieilles Vignes offers tangerine, honey, and diverse floral notes on the nose, balances richness of texture with a vivacity uncommon for this variety (and supported by un-obvious residual sugar), and finishes with a complex, rich, and rather Riesling-like melange of apricot, citrus and nut oils and malt, all tinged with salt and smoke. Hard as it is to resist this exceptional value today, it could if one wished be held for another 2-3 years. Normally, this cuvee represents a significant advance on the estate’s “basic” Pinot Blanc. In this instance, the wines are complementary but well matched – and each truly outstanding of its type. In the nearly two decades since this domaine was consolidated, the Barthelme brothers – Jacky and Maurice – have maintained their position near the forefront of Alsace viticulture, farming a range of relatively far-flung and outstanding vineyards, as well as offering excellent value virtually throughout their range. The Barthelmes are especially enthusiastic about their 2004s – and with good reason – wines whose honeyed richness and generosity of fruit sometimes make for vintage character more recognizable than that of the grape variety. The brothers believe that the strength of 2005 lies in nobly sweet wines (not all of which I have yet tasted). But when asked about what it was like to optimize these vintages, Maurice Barthelme gestured to his increasingly bald head! The brothers are very conscious of the need to promote ripeness while inhibiting sugar-retention and hard at work experimenting with ways (including certain bio-dynamic practices) they think might solve this arguably definitive wine growing dilemma of our time. (Inexplicably, Barthelmes did not sample me on their Riesling from the Rosenberg, and I apologize for having realized this omission too late to remedy it.) The Barthelme brothers have continued a serious passion for Pinot Noir, their parcels in the Hengst having been joined by a tiny plot of forty year old vines in Eguisheim’s Pfersigberg and one recent planting elsewhere. Wines from both of these new plots were promisingly concentrated and fresh-fruited in 2005, although somewhat over-burdened (at least at this early stage) by their respective loads of wood.Importer: Weygandt-Metzler, Unionville, PA; tel. (610) 486-0800