Oberer Weingarten Gewurztraminer Vendanges Tardives
⏳ Drinking Window
2024 - 2038
🍽️ Food & Wine Pairings
Foie gras, strong blue cheeses such as Roquefort, and spiced fruit tarts.
✨ Technical Specifications
The Oberer Weingarten lieu-dit, situated in the historic winemaking village of Rorschwihr, boasts a rich tapestry of clay, silt, and limestone soils that have been celebrated since the medieval era when local monasteries vied for control of these prized slopes. Domaine Rolly Gassmann harnesses this exceptional terroir to craft their Gewurztraminer Vendanges Tardives, a late-harvest masterpiece. The grapes are left on the vine long after the main harvest to achieve overripeness and benefit from the transformative effects of noble rot (Botrytis cinerea). True to the estate's patient philosophy, this wine undergoes a slow fermentation and is aged for years in their vast cellars before release. The result is a remarkably complex, opulent nectar that balances decadent sweetness with a vibrant, soil-driven minerality and characteristic notes of lychee, exotic spices, and rose petals.
🍾 About the Producer
Domaine Rolly Gassmann emerged in 1967 through the marriage of Marie-Thérèse Rolly and Louis Gassmann, unifying two families with winemaking lineages in Alsace dating to 1676 and 1611 respectively. Situated in Rorschwihr along the complex Ribeauvillé fault line, the estate commands over 50 hectares characterized by a mosaic of 21 distinct limestone-dominant subsoil profiles. Opting out of the Alsace Grand Cru hierarchy in favor of expressing traditional historic lieux-dits, current winemaker Pierre Gassmann operates strictly within biodynamic rhythms. The viticultural approach champions late physiological and phenological harvesting, intentionally courting noble rot across micro-parcels. In the cellar, natural fermentations proceed unhurried for four to six months. Celebrated for an obsessive dedication to bottle maturation, Rolly Gassmann stores millions of bottles in a state-of-the-art multi-level cellar before commercial release. The benchmark portfolio spans opulent, long-lived expressions from lieux-dits such as Silberberg, Kappelweg, and Pflaenzerreben, alongside lusciously concentrated Vendanges Tardives and Sélection de Grains Nobles.
🍇 Grapes
Gewurztraminer