Gewürztraminer Wintzenheim 2003, Domaine Zind Humbrecht
15th June 2008
Though undoubtedly an art, winemaking is not Art with a capital A. It is one of the great crafts, like cabinet-making or ceramics. I know many people dispute this, especially the young, whose duty is to challenge all established categories. Having joined countless undergraduate arguments on this subject, I have no wish to set off another. I simply make the point that if you admit any difference between Art and Craft – and I think you should – then you must accept that winemaking belongs to the latter, not the former.
That said, Art and Craft do share many qualities. One is the ability to shake prejudice. For instance, this week’s wine has shaken my mild but deep-rooted prejudice towards Rudolf Steiner, the Austrian thinker and esotericist.
Steiner was the founder of Anthroposophy, defined in Wikipedia as “a spiritual philosophy … which postulates the existence of an objective, intellectually comprehensible spiritual world accessible to direct experience through inner development.”
I cheerfully admit that I have read none of Steiner’s works and know little about them. Such ignorance is vital to the cultivation of happy prejudice. But I do know that the Anthroposophy movement has various offshoots, among them the Steiner schools, anthroposophical medicine and biodynamic agriculture. My feelings about all these can be summed up as (1) they are bunk, and (2) any good they do is purely accidental.
Others feel differently. More and more winemakers are using biodynamic techniques. When you learn that these include burying manure-stuffed bull horns in various parts of one’s vineyard at prescribed times of the year you may, like me, despair for the future of Western civilization. Then again, you may also wonder what the resulting wine tastes like. In the case of the Alsace house of Zind Humbrecht, the answer is “startling.”
The Humbrecht family has been making wine since the 1650s. The present house gets its name from the marriage of Léonard Humbrecht and Geneviève Zind in 1959. Their son Olivier has overseen the house’s conversion to biodynamic principles, and the resulting wines are now widely considered the best in Alsace.
One example is this lush, greenish-gold Gewürztraminer. Its nose suggests honey and toasted nuts, its palate, lychees and lemon meringue. It is simply outstanding, worth every penny of the $34 (UK £16) they are asking for it. And I must admit that on drinking it, my anti-Steiner views weakened somewhat. Might there be something in the old boy’s doctrines after all?
After pondering the question, I have decided that the whole issue boils down to this: we can ascribe the success of this wine to 350 years of accumulated family knowledge, or to a quantity of buried bull shit. I am with the 350 years. If you prefer the bullshit, that is your privilege. But do try the wine.
