Alsace: The wines of Pierre and Chantal Frick
10/28/17 -
In our second installment of a series of emails focused on Alsace, we present the wines of Pierre and Chantal Frick. The Fricks have been working organically since 1970, and have been certified Biodynamic since 1981. They are incredibly passionate about the importance of living soils that contribute to the health of the vines and the complexity of the wines. As they write, "the application of this more comprehensive approach to the life of the soil and vine advocated by bio-dynamie has changed our vineyard. The growing cycle of the vine is in better harmony. It is less sensitive to grey rot and insect pests. The better balance of the plant is conducive to good grape ripening and obtaining a better quality of juice (density, balance, minerality, vitality). From this the wines have revealed more depth and greater expression of terroir." The grapes are hand harvested - "The social aspect of the harvest and the search for quality through successive pickings excludes the use of machine harvesters." Fermentations are with wild yeasts - "The soil and sub-soil and additionally the bloom and yeasts on the grapes constitute the terroir. For us, biodynamic viticulture and the expression of terroir require wild yeast fermentations." They do not chaptalize and use minimal or no sulfur-dioxide, which results in delicate "luminous" wines.
Aging is in old 3,000 liter casks which the Fricks prefer to stainless steel or barrique. "These casks allow breathing (airflow) and transpiration (evacuation of higher alcohols and esters) of wines, without changing their taste by the contributions of new oak." The Fricks have also moved away from cork, and use crown caps for all of their still wines (no corked bottles!).
Over the years since I first started traveling to France to taste wines in 2011, I have tasted with Pierre countless times, and always end up laughing a LOT (he's a very animated and funny man), and learning new wine descriptors like "claquant," "sportif," and "digest" - along with the body motions that accompany them (a ninja slice or loud clap for claquant, a literal leap into the air for sportif, for example). He is a passionate man, and dedicated to his ideologies - I still remember when he proudly and comically showed us the newspaper article that reported how he snuck into a neighbor's vineyards at night, burned their genetically modified vines, and turned himself into the police the next morning. He's also the first person who confirmed for me that wines have "energy," and can truly make our bodies feel good, and lift our spirits. Once, Pierre approached me with a glass of zero sulfur Champagne from Marie Courtin and said with a beaming smile: "It makes me feel 30 years younger!"
After tasting 18 wines with Pierre earlier this year, it wasn't exactly easy to decide which ones we might work with here at Chambers, but my aim was to present a snapshot of the domaine - from classic wines like their Riesling and Gewurztraminer, to the more rare and peculiar, like the Auxerrois and Pinot Gris Maceration. We hope you enjoy these as much as we do, and maybe even feel a bit younger drinking them!
-Eben Lillie
