Browse Tag

gewürztraminer

Andlau, I love you, won’t you tell me your name?

Gresser 2001 Gewurztraminer Andlau (Alsace) – Spicy and lurid, with lychee (more skin than fruit) lending a drying finish. This, like the 2003 riesling, represents a classic, older style of the grape that is harder and harder to find in these sugar-hunting times. It’s not a great gewurztraminer by any means, but it is a perfectly typical one, and the sort of amenable wine one wants at table.

Holder down

[vineyard]Schoenheitz 2005 Gewurztraminer Holder (Alsace) – Lychee and apricot, with a bitter skin component (welcome, in wines like this) and a lot of supporting structure (very welcome in wines like this). This should have a pleasant future, though not a massively long one. (10/07)

Wine box

[fallers]Weinbach 1998 Gewurztraminer “Cuvée Laurence” (Alsace) – Corked. So big that it almost shows something anyway, but still corked. Damn. (10/07)

The Fix is in

Buecher-Fix 2000 Gewurztraminer Hatschbourg (Alsace) – A soft, peachy expression of gewürztraminer, with gallons of spice and just barely enough acid to make it all work. The wine sort of coils and writhes more than it just sits there, which is somewhat unusual for gewürztraminer of this vintage. I’m not sure I’d hold it much longer; I see it lasting more than developing, with the lovely fruit slowly fading. (10/07)

Blanck slate

[label]Blanck 2002 Gewurztraminer Altenbourg (Alsace) – Beautiful peach, pear, cashew and light lychee with a strong, crystallized mineral core and fine balance. I’ve always thought this was ageable, and now that the first throes of youth have passed, I’m even more sure. But it’s in a really good place right now, as well. (7/07)

See Hugel

[label]Hugel 2004 Gewurztraminer (Alsace) – Done up in the classic Hugel style: dry (to the palate; there may be some analyzable residual sugar) with plenty of acidity and a restrained, elegant character. This restraint doesn’t always serve Hugel well in these days of critic-pleasing excess, and then some years Hugel gets it profoundly wrong, producing something wan rather than elegant. But when it all works (as it does here), it’s a firm commitment to tradition over modishness. There’s still plenty of tradition to be found in Alsace, but not much of it is exported in these quantities. Grab it before it disappears forever. (8/07)

Mambourg number five

[label]Sparr 2002 Gewurztraminer Mambourg “Grand Cru” (Alsace) – Intense but not overdriven, with a burnt-mineral foundation layered with firm crystallized peach, lychee and almond and a supportive acid backbone, which completely dominates the very mild residual sweetness. Balanced, long and showing its terroir; what more could one want from a gewürztraminer? (8/07)

Gewurz of times

Trimbach 2001 Gewurztraminer (Alsace) – Drinking beautifully right now, with full-bodied ripe peach and lychee sliced by strongly metallic structural elements, a quartzy rock salt finish, and balancing acidity. (8/07)

Spiced Bs

[herrenweg de turckheim]Barmès Buecher 2004 Gewurztraminer Herrenweg de Turckheim (Alsace) – As with the rieslings from this site, Herrenweg gewürztraminer has a persistent problem with structure: it’s usually absent. Worse, the grape’s development is far too often stunted somewhere in the light peach and cashew range, leaving off all the exotic, developed aromas that give the grape its necessary character. Not here. This is a frankly brilliant wine, with intense, burnt-pork spice and blackened, almost Cajun-spiced minerality balanced by fiery acidity and only a very minor dollop of residual sugar (which, given the wine’s other qualities, I may even be mis-identifying). As hard as it is to imagine from this site, this wine has to be ageable. But even if it’s not, the pleasure of current consumption is plentiful. (9/07)

TN: Blanck fate

[label]Blanck 2002 Gewurztraminer Altenbourg (Alsace) – Intense, sun-baked varietal topnotes of peach and lychee lead to deeper, spicier, more mineralized strata within. This is big and intense, but it’s also structured, and will age very nicely. Right now, it’s still in a fine, open, youthful state, though bottles here and there are starting to close. Soonish, it’ll need a half-dozen years – at least – to show its stuff. (6/07)