Terre a boire 2023 - Leo Dirringer

I first met Léo at the Sommerfascht in Alsace in 2021 where his wines stood out among the 60 odd producers for their purity, verve, and digestibility. I arranged to visit him at his cellar in Dambach-la-ville and have been back on many occasions since.
Léo’s family have been making wine at their old cellar, situated in the former residence of the counts of Mullenheim, since the 16th century. Today, the estate includes 14 hectares on the manganese-rich granite hills above the village and the plains below. The family’s wines, bottled under the Ruhlmann-Dirringer labels, are highly regarded in the region, achieving repeated acknowledgement from Guide Hachette coups de couers, Guide Pudlowski, a Trophée d’Excellence in 2007 and a Grande Medaille d’Or in 2011, with the top score in the Riesling du Monde category.
Leo, born in 1992, studied viticulture in Montpellier before a formative apprenticeship with Marie-Therese Chappaz in Valais, whose committed practice of biodynamics impressed the young student. It was a tasting of the 2011 Chalasses Marnes Bleue from Jean-Francois Ganevat that convinced Leo to implement a more radical approach to his vineyard work and cellar. Building on the legacy his parents had established, he shifted the entire estate to organics when he returned to take over in 2016, carrying on his family’s work while establishing his own project in a subterranean cellar below his father’s.

In his own wines Leo seeks the purest expression of Dambach-la-ville that he can achieve using large concrete vats to vinify the fruit from the plains, and large foudre or barriques for the fruit from the vines above the village growing on granite. The whites are succulent and of breadth, with a balance of volume of fruit and mineral density that has become a signature of cuvées like Pur Jus and Grande Soif. His Pinot Noirs are vinified with carbonic maceration, often witha splash of Auxerrois or pinot Gris to add freshness, complexity, and volume. They are firmly Alsatian, but with an elegance and purity that is reminiscent of the Alpine Pinot. Having access to his family’s cellar and vineyards, Léo’s wines are among the very best value you’ll find in Alsace...

Despite being the largest producer of wine in Alsace with 450 hectares under vines, Dambach-la-ville’s quaint medieval streets remain quiet through the busy tourist season. Perhaps the cobbled streets that wind through the tilting buildings are too narrow for the tour buses. Nevertheless, the town is a thriving viticultural economy, built on the traditions of cooperage and winemaking that were established in the Middle Ages. The most prized sites are on rocky granite soils, south/south east facing on sheer sloping parcels on the foothills of the Vosges.

Grapes: Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris

Region: Dambach-la-Ville, Alsace, France

ABV: 12.5%