2005 Domaine Marc Kreydenweiss Kritt Alsace Klevner (Alsace AOC, Andlau, Alsace, France) 13% – appears bright gold, super reflective, smell beautiful and wonderful, some hops, sweet lemon candy, tangerine, with air, deep lime, slight stone, lots of good things going on, flour/pastry, toothpaste, cheesecake, mouthfeel dense, heavy, substantial, works supremely well, taste lots sweeter than nose would suggest, huge super-juicy peach with banana tones, lurking spikes in background, bit of overripeness seemingly lurking as well, lively and long finish, lasting peach center, interesting wine, fine to accompany a simple pasta with roasted eggplant, peppers and goat cheese, quite different than I was expecting, interesting enough--but not so enjoyable as to seek out another
It's interesting that in Alsace Klevner is used as an alternative name for the Savagnin Blanc grape, but here it is a pinot blanc. Per The Wine Anorak: "Marc uses the old fashioned name for Pinot Blanc (Klevner) to indicate a vendange tardive wine with botrytis: in Alsace you're only allowed to use the terms Vendange Tardive or SGN for wines made from the 'noble' grapes (Riesling, Pinot Gris, Gewürztraminer and Muscat)"
1997 Trimbach Alsace Pinot Gris Vendanges Tardives (Alsace AOC, France) Vin de Prestige line. 13% – appears beautiful medium dark gold, smell slight nectar, dried banana chips, at times bug spray, soft, with air, bit of peach and honey, mouthfeel quite thick and meaty, but impressively smooth, taste pear/honey at first, soft flavor, smoky at times, clean tart lime finish, bit of grapefruit seeds on finish as well, annoying alcoholic pepperness lurking around that grew after a couple of days—rather similar to the pleasant warm burn I have with scotch, but it most certainly did not work well here, okay wine—brought nice elements together, but quite frankly nothing ambitious about it for me and, alas, nothing memorable