2012 Boeckel, Vin d'Alsace Riesling "Clos Eugénie"

Winemaking families don’t get much more deeprooted than the Boeckels. They started out as butchers by trade in 1530 and like many families back then, they also owned a few acres of vines to make wine, which was then sold to a negociant. In 1853, Frederic Boeckel himself became a negociant, and quickly transitioned the family away from butchery, toward viticulture and winemaking. By the end of the 19th century, the Boeckels began to bottle their production–it had previously only been sold by the barrel–and were in fact the first family in Alsace to export to other countries. Émile Boeckel took over in the 1960s and really modernized the estate, digging new cellars and perfecting the production of Cremant. His sons Thomas and Jean-Daniel now run the domaine. They’ve converted all of the farming to organics, but other than that have stuck to the old way of doing things. Like the Boeckels’ prized Grand Cru bottlings, “Clos Eugénie” still ferments and ages in massive, old oak casks. Unlike