Tempe’s 2005 Auxerrois Vieilles Vignes represents a late-harvested, vendange tardive essence-of-Auxerrois (from sand-like eroded granite) the like of which I cannot recall previously tasting. Vividly ginger-spiced and zest-tinged tangerine liqueur make a striking statement on the nose and palate, with a honeyed sweetness adding to the general impression of rich, ennobled fruit in the finish. This could be quite amazing to follow for a few years in bottle, where even non-botrytis renditions of this low-acid but under-estimated cepage have been known to age remarkably well. I found no group of wines I tasted this year in Alsace more challenging to assess than those of vinous adventurer Marc Tempe, whom some critics call an iconoclast and others a reactionary. He bottled his first wines in 1995, and has been working biodynamically for a decade. These wines ferment longer (without cultured yeast additions – Tempe’s aim is to “work as naturally as possible”) and reside in fuder or barriques longer (generally 2-3 years) than any others I know of in Alsace today. Malolactic fermentation generally takes place, although Tempe doesn’t force it, and as he hastens to point out, he works at yield and ripeness levels that have in recent years proved pretty inhospitable to malic acid! Tempe likes botrytis for the complexity it adds even in dry wines. Add to all of the above considerations a penchant for minimal if any doses of sulfur and you often have wines that – while in some sense “slow moving” – are not easy targets to capture in a momentary tasting note. I have therefore only published notes or scores on wines whose personalities I felt capable of grasping on the occasion of my visit, which naturally also meant wines far enough along in fermentation than were many of his 2005s.Importer: Vintage 59 Imports, Washington, DC; tel. (202) 966 9218.