Grand Cru

Saering

Guebwiller

Out of loyalty to the oceans which covered the Rhine valley some millions of years ago, the «Sea Ring» produces wines enhanced by exquisite salty notes.

  • Soil type Marl-limestone
  • Surface area in hectares 26.75
  • Exposure East, South-East
  • Village Guebwiller
  • Altitude 260 to 300 metres
  • Grape varieties (in % per variety)
    • Riesling 84%
    • Gewurztraminer 6%
    • Muscat 6%
    • Pinot Gris 4%
Use the interactive map »

Grand Cru Saering

The wines

Saline notes reveal the marine character of these wines. They have a delectable character and length.

The terroir-tie

Less steep than neighbouring Kitterlé, Saering is gentler in its wine morphology and typicity. Saering cru opposes the calcareous subtlety to the resistance left by the granite.

Riesling stands out on this terroir with its floral and pleasantly fruity character, perceptible as of its young days. Less lively than those of Kitterlé or Spiegel, it sports a more harmonious, rounded acidity and less apparent minerality.

Conversely, Saering Gewurztraminer tends to have so much vivacity that it’s better to wait three or four years to truly appreciate the potential. It has more intense terroir nuances – a contrast which also highlights the particularity of each grape variety.

Saering Grand Cru wines stand out by its finesse.

If all grape varieties express the terroir-specific fruitiness and crispiness, the wine structure has a straightforward freshness, enhanced by remarkable and perceptive marine notes on the finish. These wines have delectable character and length.

Riesling offers floral fragrances and a salty sensation. Muscat and Gewurztraminer remain fresh and succulent, revealing savoury essence and noble plant-like touches, often reminiscent of water grasses.

Romain ILTIS
Best Sommelier of France, 2012 and Meilleur Ouvrier de France, 2015 (in the Sommelier category)

Choose and serve

Saering expresses its salty potential after four to five years (two years for Muscat). It’s a highly accessible and elegant Grand Cru. But it then ages very well.

In late vintages: the younger wines express aromas of fresh fruit which are heightened by the distinct acidity. The length stands out with its pleasant and enviable delicious quality.

In early vintages: the wines are a little more fleshy. These wines preserve their saline and distinct tautness. Citrus fruits come together giving a more full-bodied expression allowing to re-summon this Grand Cru-specific marine salinity.

Romain ILTIS
Best Sommelier of France, 2012 and Meilleur Ouvrier de France, 2015 (in the Sommelier category)

The finesse of Saering wines, associated with their salinity, makes them pair wonderfully with crustaceans and seawater products. Grilled prawns, lobster with Hollandaise sauce or crayfish with sauce are all deliciously unravelled with the Riesling expression. Muscat minerality makes great aperitif wines but also perfect partners for fish terrines, rillettes or crispy vegetables.

Romain ILTIS
Best Sommelier of France, 2012 and Meilleur Ouvrier de France, 2015 (in the Sommelier category)

Saerling-1-2
Saerling-2

Grand Cru Saering

The terroir

The nature

Like a peninsula on the plain, this calcareous block is isolated in a universe of sandstone and granite.Nature favoured the Searing Grand Cru, a hillock of heavy and fertile soils set on limestone subsoil which discerns it from its Guebwiller neighbours, but with whom it shares an impressive intermingling of small walls.

Location

To the north-east of Guebwiller, adjacent to the Kitterlé Grand Cru which separates it by a geological fault, Saering faces the east and south-east at an altitude between 260 and 300 metres. The parcels are delimited by a network of dry-stone walls, incessantly restored for over 250 years according to the various means of the time.

Soil

Recovering the Oligocene-epoch formations from the Lattorfian age composed of sandstone pebble conglomerates from Buntsandstein and interstratified marl, the terroir reveals a calcareous subsoil which occasionally shows on the surface. The soil is mostly heavy, marl-sandy, abundantly endowed with pebbles.

To put it simply, the Saering Grand Cru forms a kind of limestone hillock covered in sandstone shingle formations and granitic fragments. This bulge stands like a guard at the outpost of the Florival valley entrance. The terroir-specific nature has intrigued popular imagination throughout the ages, seeing this calcareous block, isolated within a universe of sandstone and granite, as a vestige from the sea which once covered the Rhine valley.

Microclimate

Protected from cold winds by the Vosges mountain range, facing south-east and benefiting from a great water supply, the vines flourish early to give the best of themselves.

Victor Canales

Grape varieties

The sandy nature of the soil which sits upon Jurassic-age limestone, is particularly suited for Riesling.

Victor Canales

To a lesser extent there is very high-quality Muscat, Gewurztraminer and Pinot Gris.

The people

Identified a long time ago and living its heyday as of the 14th century, Saering preserves the secret of its nature. As its crystalline and radiant wines still don’t tell us if they reflect the memory of the sea or that of the Romans.

Heritage transmission

Saering is cited for the first time in 1250 at a time when the turbulent Guebwiller nobility was fighting over the completion of its feudal sovereignty for the region at the Murbach abbey. Saering wines, like the other neighbouring crus, had their apogee during the 14th century by travelling across the routes of Basel and Luzern heading towards Austria. As of 1830, Guebwiller and Bergholtz wine-makers marketed them under the name of the lieu-dit.

According to legend, Saering came from the word Seering which designated an iron ring apparently found one day sealed to a rock and which was used to moor the ships when the valley was a vast sea. Therefore an explanation was found for the tectonic displacements which over the geological periods made the soft subsoil stones come to the earth surface.

As for Abbot Braun, chronicler of Florival legends, he saw the etymology of the word Saering come from Roman camps: «Visible trenches from these sort of camps, he wrote in 1866, «were found on the Sehring plateau (former spelling), at the entrance of the Guebwiller valley. We know that the Germans designated their camps by the word Ring and the name Seh-ring would very have served to designate an observation camp. It’s precisely on this magical spot from where you can see everything, even the spirits, but can be seen by nobody, that Abbot Braun places the settlement of the god Odin, guardian of natural treasures in German mythology.

Victor Canales
Synvira

The Grands Crus of Alsace

Discover also