Maison Trimbach
Cuvée Frédéric Emile
Alsace
2005

The producer

Established in Ribeauville, in 1626, Maison Trimbach has always been family owned and run, today with the 12^th generation, brothers Jean and Pierre Trimbach, in charge and supported by Pierre’s daughter, Anne, and Jean’s son, Julien. The family owns around 50 hectares of vineyards spread over seven villages and more than 50 sites and while the family has a soft spot for all the Alsace grape varieties, it is with the grape variety Riesling that their true passion lies (Riesling makes up 45% of the total production).

The style of wine produced here is simple: high fruit concentration and juicy texture with crystal-clear aromatics and a great deal of mineral character from the specific vineyard, all the wines are consistently dry with great freshness and long ageing potential. Depending on the characteristics of a specific vintage, the wines are left to mature in either stainless steel, concrete, or old wood, but there is no recipe, and the wines don’t see any lees ageing.

The wine

‘Cuvee Frederic Emile’ is named after the 19^th century Trimbach who expanded the business to become a merchant house (as well as a wine grower). It is a blend of Riesling grapes from Grand Cru vineyards Geisberg (south/south-east facing) and Osterberg (east facing) which have a marl-limestone-sandstone terroir and produces a powerful style of Riesling, underpinned by a strong mineral note and finely edged core.

We choose our wines based on a range of criteria (see how we choose our wines) of which critic scores is just one. Rather than simply highlight the best score to promote a wine, our average critic score is calculated from the scores provided by several respected wine critics, who we follow for specific regions. They do not represent all critic scores and, wherever possible, we try and give more weight to more recent reviews. Where appropriate we consider market-based scores like Global Wine Score or Wine Searcher Average scores.

As a rule, we look to offer wines that achieve a 92/100 average critic score or better and frankly a lot of very good wines simply don’t make the cut. As a high-end provider we want to reflect that positioning in the quality of wines we offer. Such wines are only a tiny fraction of those generally on offer in the market. We believe that an average score is a more conservative and representative approach, but it is still subjective and only offered as a guide to our customers, who will (and should) do their own research. We will add individual critic scores to our website in the future.