2020 Domaine Brand 'The New One' Riesling

Riesling from Alsace, France
Domaine Brand was one of the first wines that had us head over heels for Alsace. The wines are pure expressions of what wines from Alsace are: textural, aromatic, rich and pure. Riesling gets a weird wrap for being sweet, just like any wine can be sweet any wine can be dry, like this dry Riesling. Domaine Brand was started in 1956 by Lucien Brand and has been passed down to his son Phillipe and now Phillipe and his son Charles are the current vignerons. It’s a wonderful story of a family’s commitment to wine, biodynamic farming and natural wine even before it was cool to do so. They still use horses to plow their vineyards as Lucien did at the inception of the winery. Thanks to their method of growing vines and good soil work, the roots of this grape variety can go down to more than 10 meters deep and capture the trace elements and mineral salts of the bedrock. We can always taste the saltiness in these wines which is a really wonderful compliment to the fruit and aromatics kind of like you get when you drink a sip of gatorade or electrolytes. You can’t help but keep drinking. The winery makes a variety of wines and Brand & Co. is a winery within their winery where they do source a little fruit from other like minded vineyards to make more of a table wine than a super serious wine that will break the bank.
Pairing Recommendations: This is a great wine for the Fall season, perfect with end of the season heirloom tomatoes and peppers, perfect to start a meal with salads and veggies, great with white fish and a green olive caponata or oily tinned fish with pickled veggies.