Jean Ginglinger Pinot Noir 2018 (Preservative Free) LIVING WINES

Jean Ginglinger is a producer of natural wines who is based in the central Alsace village of Pfaffenheim which lies 12 kilometres south of Colmar where he cares for 6.5 hectares of prime sites including two Grand Cru vineyards (Steinert and Zinnkoepfle). The family are not recent arrivals having been involved in viticulture here since 1610!!!

The soil here is complex being a mix of limestone of various types including calcareous sandstone. The photo below shows an outcrop of complex limestone in one of Jean’s vineyards.

The domaine was converted to biodynamic viticulture in 1997. Jean achieved Ecocert organic certification in 1999 and then, in 2001, biodynamic certification with Demeter. For the past couple of years they have abandoned mechanised vehicles and reverted to horses to do much of the work in the vineyards.

Importantly, since 2003 when they vinified their Pinot Noir Steiner without sulphites they have pursued this ideal for all of their wines and currently 12 out of their 20 cuvees have no added sulphites.

They produce wines from the seven standard white grape varieties of Alsace namely Sylvaner, Riesling, Muscat d’Alsace, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris and Gewurtztraminer as well as Pinot Noir. He also produces a fine Cremant d’Alsace using Auxerrois Blanc and Pinot Blanc.

Jean is a quiet, humble and passionate man who wants to produce pure wines that reflect the terroir of his very special vineyards.

We mentioned above that Jean has approximately one third of his vines in two vineyards (Steinert and Zinnkoepfle) which are classified as Grand Cru vineyards. He does not, however, submit his wines for Grand Cru classification as the tasting panel has a preference for sweeter-style wines and wines that contain sulphites. Jean likes dryer-style wines and does not want to add sulphites, so he drops the ‘t ” from Steinert for the cuvee names to emphasise that it is not rated as a Grand Cru. So we took a photo of Jean in the Steinert vineyard and also dropped the T from the photo.

– Importer Note