Tonight’s wine is one of life’s most simple and accessible pleasures: A classic white blend from Alsace. This skinny green bottle smells and tastes amazing, costs little, and pairs with almost anything. I’ll go so far as to say that if you don’t like this style, there’s something wrong with you.
I’m at Lavendou Bistro in Dallas, which has a wide-ranging French wine list and a delectable rustic-traditional menu. But I couldn’t resist ordering from the special carte of Alsatian wines and foods that they have brought out for October’s Fête de La Choucroute (Sauerkraut Fest).
My expectations for the 2021 Hugel Gentil were already sitting high, but they’re cranked up another notch when I point to the wine on my menu. The server’s eyes light up, he nods excitedly, and he begins to speak with exclamation points in his voice: “That wine is very good! I first tasted it today! It has so many fruits! I don’t know all the fruits in wine–what all their names are–but it has a lot of fruits! It’s very good!”
Moments later, the wine arrives in an ice bucket, radiating a halo of golden light and a cloud of nectar. It’s stunningly fresh and aromatic…and there are indeed a lot of fruits.
Orange blossom, peach, winter pear, and lychee bloom from the glass, with a faint cast of petrol and beeswax. I take another sniff because four fruits is about all that my nose can hold at once–then find yellow mango, tangerine, lemon zest, and green apple. Golden plums and apples, too? This is a hedonistic blend that perhaps dreams of being a dessert wine, but accomplishes all its fruity feats with barely detectable residual sugar (~5 g).
On the palate, it’s medium-bodied, the round and soft texture balanced by perky acidity. The kaleidoscopic fruit aromas settle and resolve themselves into a milder arrangement of blossoms and stone fruit with a little blanched almond. The finish achieves a truly ideal balance of length and crispness. As it warms in the mouth, the ripest flavors (gold pineapple and Tuscan melon) emerge briefly, then are cut off from their reveries by a zesty citric punch.
Alsatian whites are usually made as single varietals, the better to highlight the character of each of Alsace’s noble grapes. Gentil wines (noble Alsace blends) are one of the only places you’ll find Gewurz palling around with Riesling, and that’s too bad. They are two divas that also have chemistry as co-stars–Riesling propping up the acidity in the blend and Gewurz heaping on layers and layers of pure heavenly fragrance to soften any austerity.
Hugel’s Gentil is a hand-harvested creation of all six Hugel white varieties. The fruit comes from favored sites in and around the medieval town of Riquewihr. According to the winemaker, the blend “allies the suave, spicy flavour of Gewurztraminer, the body of Pinot Gris, the finesse of Riesling, the grapiness of Muscat and the refreshing character of Pinot Blanc and Sylvaner.”
The wine textbook I’m currently studying from says that there are only four noble varieties permitted in Gentil (Sylvaner and Pinot Blanc aren’t generally invited to the party). But the same book also alludes to some wiggle room and some grandfathering in the local labeling laws. The Hugel family has been making wines in Alsace since 1639, so I reckon they’re trusted to use some Pinot Blanc if they want to.
Hugel’s production notes complain bitterly about the 2021 vintage. The crop was decimated first by spring frost, then plagued by excessive rain and mold, then challenged by drought in the fall, leading to the loss of up to 80% of the grapes in some vineyards and the shortest yields since 1947.
It’s a great buy if you can find it–and yes, it even stands up to mustard and sauerkraut. It was perfection with a dinner of herb-roasted chicken and Alsatian braised pork pot (choucroute garnie).
Bottle: Famille Hugel Gentil Alsace AOC (2021)
Variety: Gewurztraminer (32%), Pinot Gris (25%), Riesling (15%), Pinot Blanc (15%), Sylvaner (10%), Muscat Blanc à Petits Grains (3%)
ABV: 12.94%
Suggested retail: $18
My rating: 9.2 (out of 10)
Review disclosure: I was not compensated or provided any free products for this review. Opinions expressed on The Wine Fairy blog are entirely my own.
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