Domaine Albert Boxler

2020 Alsace Grand Cru Sommerberg AOC Riesling Vendanges Tardives

The Grand Cru Sommerberg’s late harvested Riesling from a unicorn producer… what a rare treat. This is a deliciously dangerous VT, still in its infancy at 2020—open now at your peril! Tasting this in the summer of 2025 I am encountering nose of ripe pineapple, mango, habanero, and sweet corn, all these notes a bit withholding when the wine is just opened and too cold. I’m scolding myself for not waiting longer to taste this, and yet how can you be mad when you’re in the presence of such energizing fruit. The wine clearly has a Bacchic chorus inside of it, and that’s not a claim I make loosely. Tasting notes feel blasphemous. If you had to put a reference point on it the wine’s home base is perfectly-ripe nectarine. Fascinatingly, the wine is not as sweet as you might think, and the acid is not daunting but gentle and gorgeous, drawing the wine upward like a marionette. The byword in this wine is harmony. This wine’s biggest problem at this age is that it is so moreish that you throw it back faster than you’d like, haha. Its wildly promising potential is still secreted away inside its youthful fruit profile. Of all the vinous infanticides I’ve committed, this one was the least painful though, because the wine is just an insanely delicious treat, regardless of all the snuffed-out possibilities of future maturation. The more patient cellar-keeper will collect a dizzying reward on their discipline if they can hold onto this wine for 10-20 years. And if you have a 2020 baby or an anniversary in 2020, do yourself a favour and lay some of these down for your future celebrations!
France
White
Biodynamic Wine
Vegan

Region:  Niedermorschwihr, Alsace

Appellation:  Alsace Grand Cru AOC

Varietal/Blend:  Riesling

ABV:  13.0%

Vineyard & Vine Age: Organic estate vineyards (certified for over twenty years). Precision-farmed entirely by hand. Vines as old as eighty years, only replanted (with selection massale) on an individual basis as needed. Boxler always harvests when the fruit reaches its own natural maturity (resisting the trend to pick earlier to guarantee fully dry ferments) and may therefore contain some degree of residual sugar in the final wine, depending on the vintage. No fertilizing, ever.

Cellar: Hand sorted fruit goes into one of three pneumatic presses for an obsessively careful pressing that can last from four to twelve hours, fractioning out various pressures to blend back in or omit from each wine according to its needs. The juice is then patiently cold-settled before being racked (gravity-fed) into stainless steel. Fermentation occurs naturally with indigenous yeasts. As a rule, the wines remain on their lees unless at some point in the span of ageing they begin to taste reductive, at which time they'll rack the wine off the lees and returned to finish its élevage. The wine is bottled after 11 months with a small SO2 addition to ensure purity. The wines are never fined and receive a very light filtration only when necessary to guarantee quality.

(NB: The identical ageing regimen and vessel size is used for every Boxler wine to provide more objective comparisons between each vintage and terroir, vertically and horizontally. The only exception is that the Gewurztraminers, Vendanges Tardives, and SGN's age in stainless steel as opposed to oak).

CSPC:  128386

Winemakers Note:  []

What the Critics are saying:  []

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Domaine Albert Boxler
2020 Alsace Grand Cru Sommerberg AOC Riesling Vendanges Tardives

Region:  Niedermorschwihr, Alsace

Appellation:  Alsace Grand Cru AOC

QR code, that takes the user to all the French wines Vino al Vino has available.
France
White
Biodynamic Wine
Vegan
The Grand Cru Sommerberg’s late harvested Riesling from a unicorn producer… what a rare treat. This is a deliciously dangerous VT, still in its infancy at 2020—open now at your peril! Tasting this in the summer of 2025 I am encountering nose of ripe pineapple, mango, habanero, and sweet corn, all these notes a bit withholding when the wine is just opened and too cold. I’m scolding myself for not waiting longer to taste this, and yet how can you be mad when you’re in the presence of such energizing fruit. The wine clearly has a Bacchic chorus inside of it, and that’s not a claim I make loosely. Tasting notes feel blasphemous. If you had to put a reference point on it the wine’s home base is perfectly-ripe nectarine. Fascinatingly, the wine is not as sweet as you might think, and the acid is not daunting but gentle and gorgeous, drawing the wine upward like a marionette. The byword in this wine is harmony. This wine’s biggest problem at this age is that it is so moreish that you throw it back faster than you’d like, haha. Its wildly promising potential is still secreted away inside its youthful fruit profile. Of all the vinous infanticides I’ve committed, this one was the least painful though, because the wine is just an insanely delicious treat, regardless of all the snuffed-out possibilities of future maturation. The more patient cellar-keeper will collect a dizzying reward on their discipline if they can hold onto this wine for 10-20 years. And if you have a 2020 baby or an anniversary in 2020, do yourself a favour and lay some of these down for your future celebrations!

TECHNICAL INFO

Varietal/Blend:  Riesling

ABV:  13.0%

Vineyard:  Organic estate vineyards (certified for over twenty years). Precision-farmed entirely by hand. Vines as old as eighty years, only replanted (with selection massale) on an individual basis as needed. Boxler always harvests when the fruit reaches its own natural maturity (resisting the trend to pick earlier to guarantee fully dry ferments) and may therefore contain some degree of residual sugar in the final wine, depending on the vintage. No fertilizing, ever.

Cellar: Hand sorted fruit goes into one of three pneumatic presses for an obsessively careful pressing that can last from four to twelve hours, fractioning out various pressures to blend back in or omit from each wine according to its needs. The juice is then patiently cold-settled before being racked (gravity-fed) into stainless steel. Fermentation occurs naturally with indigenous yeasts. As a rule, the wines remain on their lees unless at some point in the span of ageing they begin to taste reductive, at which time they'll rack the wine off the lees and returned to finish its élevage. The wine is bottled after 11 months with a small SO2 addition to ensure purity. The wines are never fined and receive a very light filtration only when necessary to guarantee quality.

(NB: The identical ageing regimen and vessel size is used for every Boxler wine to provide more objective comparisons between each vintage and terroir, vertically and horizontally. The only exception is that the Gewurztraminers, Vendanges Tardives, and SGN's age in stainless steel as opposed to oak).

CSPC:  128386

Winemakers Note: []

What the Critics are saying: []

Giovanni Autuori
Calgary + Alberta South

T: 403-971-1898

E: giovanni@vinoalvino.ca

Joe Gurba
Edmonton + Alberta North

T: 780-203-5284

E: joeg@vinoalvino.ca

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TECHNICAL INFO

Country:  France

Region:  Niedermorschwihr, Alsace

Appellation:  Alsace Grand Cru AOC

Climate: 

Altitude: 

Soils: 

Varietal/Blend:  Riesling

Fermentation:  Spontaneous fermentation with native yeasts in old oak puncheons.

Ageing: 

Vineyard & Vine Age:  Bull Swamp and Manilla vineyards in Baw Baw Shire. The vines were planted in 1961 and and 1964 respectively.

ABV:  13.0%

Produced Cases:  50

CSPC:  128386

Calgary + Alberta South

Andrew Stewart

403-604-0408

andrew@vinoalvino.ca

Rajat Parr & Sashi Moorman in the vineyard

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Edmonton + Alberta North

Joe Gurba

780-203-5284

joe@vinoalvino.ca

Saskatoon + Saskatchewan South

Kerrie Gavin

306-290-0277

kerrie@vinoalvino.ca