This year marked my 25th anniversary of visiting Alsace professionally at least once a year to taste the wines of the new vintage (plus any other recent releases), but I had actually first visited the region in my early teens, on vacation with my mother and grand-mother back in 1976. The year of the Montréal Olympics was a great vintage in Alsace, and also, at least for me, a harbinger of things to come. In fact, over the years, Alsace has really become my home away from home, one of the three or four places on planet Earth I love the most. I almost moved there for good back in 2002; and believe it or not, it was a tough a decision for me to stay put in Rome and not relocate. Since then, I have been to Alsace as often as five times a year: that number alone tells you how much I love Alsace, but also allows you to infer just how well I know the region and its wines. Simply put, I love everything about Alsace: its history, its scenery, its people, its food and of course, its wines. It really couldn’t have been otherwise, because like I mentioned, it’s a love affair that started back in my teens: in fact, my first serious girlfriend was from Alsace (I grew up in Toronto where I studied at a private French high school, and so meeting a young French lady wasn’t such an unlikely outcome), and that love for Alsace has continued unabated all my adult life. For example, even though I know live in Shanghai, and in a year in which I had many other unforeseen travel commitments, I will still spend close to a month in Alsace. What it all means is that I am, and am universally recognized for it, the English-language wine writer who most devotes his time and writing space to Alsace and its wines. It is something I am proud of: but clearly, what really counts and is my biggest hope is that it all dovetails into giving you, my readers, the best and most complete intel on Alsace, its grape varieties, its terroirs and wines.
