Wine Club 25 September

Alsace is my favourite of all French wine regions. There, I’ve said it. Bordered by the Vosges and the Rhine, it’s achingly pretty with rolling, wooded hills and exquisite medieval villages. The food is sublime (26 Michelin-starred restaurants), the climate benign (second lowest rainfall in all of France) and the wines, well, they’re stunning, from bone dry whites to sumptuously sweet late harvest wines and tasty Pinot Noir reds.

Apart from a smattering of excellent co-operatives, the wineries are nearly all family-owned, boasting long, unbroken histories despite Alsace having been the battleground of Europe for centuries, enduring such bust-ups as the Thirty Years War, the Franco-Prussian War and two world wars.

The 2019 Pinot Gris, Hospices de Colmar (1) comes from one of the most youthful domaines, founded as recently as 1895, albeit with a vineyard first planted in 1255. A wonderful expression of this grape, the wine’s soft, supple, aromatic and creamy and, while rich and exotically fruity, it finishes delectably dry.