Yann Durrmann
France, Alsace, Andlau
Alsace sunshine incoming courtesy of Yann Durrmann - his new 2024 wines have arrived!
The wines of this vintage have great purity and finesse, a lovely sense of balance and juicy acids. It's always exciting to receive a shipment like this from Yann, a full run through every style of wine he makes.
In Andlau, 2024 saw another warm vintage, but this time with bags of rain and high humidity that led to battles with mildew, losing yields in the Pinot Noir parcels in particular. A silver lining here, the two Pinots are among our favourites in recent years - good maturity of fruit twinned with a brilliant freshness. With only 200 or so bottles of each of the reds to go round, we don't expect these to last long this Christmas. The whites and macerations have great energy, it's a treat to now have Yann's take on five of the Alsace white varieties. As an added bonus we have a little of their wood-fired Alembic still Eau-de-Vie: Mirabelle & Anisette to keep your festive health up.
If you work in the trade and would like to taste - we'll be opening all the new arrivals on Monday December 1 at Ducksoup from 11:00am - drop us an email to RSVP!
The new wines are detailed in full below:
DURRMANN 2024 RELEASE
For all the whites (since 2023) Yann now de-stems, and after a gentle crush the fruit spends 24 hours on the skins in bespoke steel vats he has designed, in order for them to be carried to the press more easily. He no longer needs to press for as long, as fruit has begun to break down, but his main reason is that it helps the juice take more nutrients from the skins to encourage a healthier fermentation.
More or less everything except the Grand Cru wines are aged in steel.
Yann's work is committed to expressing his varied terroir scattered over 30 small parcels around the village. Where possible he prefers to vinfy parcel by parcel, bottling varieties according to their soil type and location. With five distinct geological makeups in a five kilometre radius, to drink the entire Durrmann range is to glean a true insight into the terroir of Andlau.
Yann has been heading up the domaine since 2018, taking an already groundbreaking Alsatian family who were dedicated to organic farming, a long-established no-till practice, agroforestry, and indigenous fermentations one step further into unfiltered, zero sulphur winemaking.
SPARKLING
2024 - Grizzling Has to be up there with our favourite iterations of this cuvée - bags of kiwi and green apple, limes and salt crushed together. Clean, bright, disgorged for purity of fruit, no additions added. Super good.
2022 - Noctambulle A top-up of this ace vintage from a warm, dry year. First of the season Fraise des Bois - a pet-nat of Pinots Noir & Gris with soft, powdery tannin, and such a welcome zip of volatile acidity.
WHITE
2024 - Ron-rond Litron Blanc
Pinot blanc, Sylvaner, Riesling, Muscat, Gewurz picked from neighbouring organic parcels, fermented separately and assembled. White peach and kiwi, quite a generous vintage cut through with some classic Alsace acid.
2024 - Sylvaner
From parcels of granite and a little clay, the '24 is briny and tense, with long refreshing acids. With the 24 fermentations showing generally more reductive for Yann, he decided to rack all the wines clearer this year to ensure stability and to not compromise fruit.
2024 - Pinot blanc
A 50/50 blend of Pinot Blanc on Schist for acidity and structure, and Auxerrois on Gres for aromatics and fruit. With plenty of rain in 2024, the Pinot Blanc feels buoyant and nourishing: a nicely integrated reduction over aromatic orange blossom, nashi pear and long, salty acids.
2024 - Muscat d'Alsace
A lovely new one from Yann, from a parcel on sandstone that has gone to the pet-nat in recent years - coming into good maturity, he decided it was time to start doing it's own cuvée. Great aromatics without tipping into soap territory, a very pretty expression of the variety. With '24 being a high-acid vintage, the Muscat really works in this style.
2024 - Zegwur
Yann has been picking from two parcels of Gewurz over Granite & Gres for this wine since heavy mildew damage in 2021 - he likes the balance so much that he's continued since. One third was macerated for three weeks, the rest for 24 hours. This is such a wonderful vintage for Zegwur - rose, lychee & kiwi - saline and elegant, just enough aromatics and chew to keep you interested, long driving acids - pure!
2024 - Riesling sur grès
The first release of the terroir Rieslings, 2024 is a very 'aerial' vintage as Yann likes to say, a very pretty expression of its citrus and fleshy stone fruit.
SKINS
2024 - Riesling Krax
A super-tropical 24! a 3-4 week destemmed maceration on skins, the tannin is super delicate this year, with abundant fruit, pithy citrus and beautiful acids. A really accomplished vintage.
RED
2024 - Pinot Noir Rouge Gorge
Negocé from his neighbouring organic parcels. Yann notes that whilst the domaine and negoce (Gorge) Pinots are picked at similar times, both mostly over sandstone, and made the same way, his neighbour's parcel is a site with less sun, and not as diligent yield control as Yann - so not as much concentration of fruit. Both the PInots are hand-harvested and destemmed, macerated gently for three weeks, aged in stainless steel and bottled with no additions.
Great juicy fruit for 24 without tipping into confected territory, a lovely fine frame of tannin and finishing with a pleasing bitterness. Lovely, and tiny amounts to go round.
2024 - Rouge de Pinot Noir
With the schist parcels being most susceptible to mildew in '24, this year's domaine Pinot is mostly sandstone. With yields controlled carefully, there's more material in the domaine compared to the Gorge, really beautiful delicate structure, cherries and orange zest, a whisper of smoke.
EAU DE VIE
Taking over the practice from his father André who has just about retired from his distilling now, Yann used the wood-fired Alembic still for these incredibly pure Eau de Vie.
Mirabelle - Mirabelle plum
Grown among the Kastelberg parcels, the Durrmann family Mirabelle's are quite the thing of beauty. Distilled here with the stones, bringing almond, vanilla, a bright cherry, and even coconut.
Anisette - (distillation of Vin Chaud must, anise, cinammon, apricots and citrus rind)
The spirit of Christmas? Since Yann has been making his (now iconic) mulled wine (Vin Chaud) at Strasbourg Christmas Market he has wanted to do things properly. To tie it in with their farming, he adds to the pot of spices and wine a jam made with Mirabelle plums from their fields. The leftover mash of star anise, cinnamon, citrus and sticky jam residue smelt so good he didn't want to throw it away- and decided to make a distillation. A christmas miracle.
