2024 Julien Schaal Grand Cru Schoenenbourg Riesling “Gypse”
Few decisions feel as deceptively simple, and as quietly stressful, as choosing the right bottle of wine to share with others. That feeling intensifies toward the end of the year, when the pressure to treat guests at holiday parties and family reunions begins to rise. Because we are seen as the ones “who know about wine,” I feel our choices are more closely scrutinized. Should we bring a serious, expensive bottle and attempt to share a bit of wine knowledge with those around us? Would the other guests be intrigued, irritated—or, worse, indifferent? But even in this last scenario, how could we, self-declared wine snobs, simply show up with the usual stuff? And so the search for the right bottle begins.
My default approach on these occasions is to seek out a wine that strikes a convincing balance between price and quality, a combination that feels increasingly elusive. I’ve grown so accustomed to bracing for disappointment when searching for a bottle worthy of a special moment that, on the rare occasions when a talented winemaker, a distinguished terroir, and a fair price miraculously align, I tend to greet the discovery not with relief, but with skepticism.
Such was the case with the 2024 Julien Schaal Schoenenbourg Grand Cru Riesling Gypse, which I came across while looking for a wine to bring to a recent family dinner.
I found it offered by an online merchant for a mere €17 per bottle (roughly $20 at today’s exchange rate)—a figure that seemed implausibly modest. A quick check on Wine-Searcher confirmed this as the wine’s median market price, at least in Europe, though I did come across one vendor listing it in the mid-30s, a price that struck me as far more plausible.
Julien Schaal, a small négociant operation founded in 2010, is based in the timeless Alsatian hamlet of Unawihr, sourcing fruit from some of the Haut-Rhin’s most renowned grands crus. My familiarity with Schaal’s wines is admittedly limited, but past encounters with bottles produced by his wife, Sophie, under the regional Alsace AOC have always been encouraging. That history gave me enough confidence to stock up on several of his cuvées.
Given the steady rise in wine prices across the board, particularly for bottles tied to pedigreed sites, one can’t help but wonder how a wine from a promising young producer and one of France’s most venerable vineyards can still carry such a gentle price tag. Schoenenbourg, after all, was celebrated as far back as the Middle Ages and even counted Voltaire among its owners. In 1663, the Swiss cartographer Merian described it as a place “where the most noble wine of this country is produced.” The vineyard rises steeply just beyond the gates of the über-quaint village of Riquewihr and stretches eastward along a slender hill toward the citadel of Zellenberg. The slopes of this historic site are particularly suited to Riesling, producing wines of breadth and tension.
Julien’s cuvée, aptly named Gypse, pays homage to the gypsum-rich subsoils that define Schoenenbourg’s character. The wine, already delicious in its youth, impressed everyone around the table and paired effortlessly with a risotto con le canocchie (spot-tail mantis shrimp) my father prepared for us. Its almost imperceptible residual sugar worked in concert with the mild sweetness of the crustaceans, while a laser beam of acidity offset the dish’s creaminess.
And before anyone protests the blatant infanticide, rest assured: five additional bottles are now resting comfortably in the cellar, reserved for a more considered drinking window.