Zind Humbrecht Pinot Noir Heimbourg – 2009

Excellent Pinot Noir from the warm, dry 2009 vintage. This is serious and complex, premier grand cru in quality level but a little more austere and less open than most 2009 red Burgundies at this stage of its development. This will improve for 15-20 years.
“Harvested almost a week later than the corresponding Wintzenheim bottling, but at higher acidity and from a site Olivier Humbrecht believes has real promise for this grape, his 2009 Pinot Noir Heimbourg offers ripe but bright cherry and boysenberry fruit, with the bitterness of cherry pit helping to convey a sense of cut and to extend a promisingly juicy and at the same time almost palpably chalky finish. Even more so than the Wintzenheim bottling, this exhibits rich marrowy underlying meatiness and saliva-inducing salinity. Inner-mouth hints of violet and peony add allure to a Pinot no doubt worth following for at least half a dozen years. Like its Wintzenheim counterpart, this impressive red is raised in used barriques and bottled early, Humbrecht insisting that “Alsace Pinot Noir is too fragile and susceptible to oxidation to put in new wood or leave in barrel into a second year.” He’d certainly get some arguments from a number of his fellow vignerons on that point! (I could not taste this wine’s 2008 counterpart as it had been sold out at the domaine without remainder and neither I nor Humbrecht knew where to come up with a bottle.)” The Wine Advocate