Bursin’s 2007 Pinot Gris Zinnkoepfle offers ripe peach fruit and nut paste reinforced by slight sweetness and tinged with brown spices. There is richness here though not much refreshment and a relatively loose though soothing finish without notably precision. And like so many of today’s off-dry Alsace Pinot Gris bottlings, while it is attractive in and of itself, I am not sure I would find many ways to use it at table, as I might an off-dry Riesling or Chenin in which there was genuine tension and in which residual sugar (such as the 18 grams present here) was not so noticeable as such. I’m sure this will keep well enough for at least 5-6 years. Agathe Bursin – for more about whom consult issue 175 – is one of Alsace’s major emerging talents, as witness her surprisingly fine showing in the difficult 2006 vintage. Bursin’s 2007 vintage Rieslings are comparatively firm, though they may well blossom short-term, and as usual she has scored impressive results with Gewurztraminer.A Thomas Calder Selection (various importers), Paris; fax 011-33-1-46-45-15-29