Wine Reviews

A minerally white, with a waft of smoke on the nose underscoring notes of tangerine, honeyed apricot, lime blossoms and pink grapefruit granita. Firm and well-cut, with a bright finish of white blossoms, stone and spices.

The 2021 Riesling Rangen de Thann Clos Saint Urbain Grand Cru is from the famously steep and dark volcanic rock of Rangen with some sandstone inclusions. The soil is rich in potassium which buffers the pH of the wine, making the acid less strident yet lending much power to the wines. The oldest plots of Riesling are up to 60 years old; the younger vines are 45 years old. The color is golden. Underneath the reduction is a spicy smokiness, with greengage and white pepper. There is something utterly fluid, intense, compact and concentrated that seems to have a total verticality, driving into the depth of the rock. The wine has luminous citric yet balanced freshness and is clear as a bell. Wait for this because it will be sensational. The finish is bone-dry and salty

The 2019 Riesling Rangen de Thann Clos Saint Urbain yielded only 18 hectoliters per hectare and opens with fleshy, super ripe and aromatic fruit that initially covers the volcanic features of the Rangen that emerge only slowly but remarkably. There is passion fruit and other tropical fruit aromas here. On the palate, this is a full-bodied, dense, refined and elegant, lush and generous Rangen with firm and fine tannins, intense and juicy fruit and lingering salinity. This is very long and complex yet not really powerful or mighty. However, it fills every corner of the palate; it’s dense yet not heavy and rather light, rich but floating, vital and saline.

The 2020 Riesling Rangen de Thann Clos Saint Urbain offers a fascinating, pure and complex, iodine and smoky nose of crushed volcanic rocks and perfectly ripe Riesling fruits. This nose is mind-blowing in its combination of purity, complexity, finesse and characterizing flintiness. On the palate, this is a full-bodied, very rich and intense, powerful and big but uplifting and fresh Riesling with great complexity, stimulating salinity and very fine mineral tannins. This is the finest Rangen Riesling I have tasted so far from the Clos St Urbain, and a vertical tasting (of any vintages) is long overdue

Though dense and compact today this is elegant and harmonious overall, thanks to the precision and deft integration of vibrant acidity with a rich vein of minerally smoke and stone and notes of poached quince, nectarine and yellow plum fruit, pickled ginger, almond blossom and clover honey. Long, long finish of mineral and spice