Gewurztraminer is a white wine grape with a distinctive lychee fruit aroma and spicy flavor. It is popular in Alsace, France, and is often paired with spicy foods. Some German varieties are sweeter, and it can also be used to make dessert wines.
Gewurztraminer is a cold climate grape used in the production of white wine. While not universally popular, it is often used as an early wine to teach people how to recognize different varietals through taste, due to its distinctive smell and flavor. The main aroma of Gewurztraminer is fresh lychee fruit. This scent is very noticeable and pleasant to most people. The grape also displays other spices: the name derives from the German word Gewurz, which means “spicy”.
While many wine connoisseurs turn up their noses at Gewurztraminer, proclaiming it too direct in its aroma and taste, others find it a truly fine wine when made with care and attention to detail. Because of its strong aroma, it is one of the few still wines that holds up particularly well when paired with spicy foods. In the United States, this has helped boost its popularity, with the growing popularity of Asian and Indian cuisines and a desire to find suitable wines to pair with these dishes.
Gewurztraminer originally comes from the village of Termeno in Italy and some Italian Gewurztraminer is still produced. The most popular Gewurztraminers, however, come from the Alsace region of France. These wines are a study in contrasts, with an extremely sweet bouquet, yet a surprisingly dry taste.
Gewurztraminer from Alsace, along with Riesling, is one of the few French wines named directly for the grape used, rather than the region or special blend. Grape growers in Alsace average only about five acres of land – not enough grapes to make a coherent wine – and so it is the job of a number of ‘shippers’ to pick grapes from a number of producers and create the wine. When you buy a Gewurztraminer from Alsace, therefore, you’re buying it based on the reputation of the shipper, rather than a vineyard – major shippers include Domaine Weinbach and FE Trimbach.
German Gewurztraminer tends to be sweeter than its French counterpart, although in recent years a number of German wineries have begun producing drier varieties. In the United States, Gewurztraminer is planted in California and New York. Elsewhere, it’s also popular in Australia, New Zealand, and small parts of Canada.
Gewurztraminer is another white grape variety particularly sensitive to the botrytis noble rot, which allows it to be transformed into late-harvest dessert wines with a high sugar content. A few scant examples of dessert Gewurztraminer have somewhat negatively affected the popular perception of this grape, which can be made into a very high quality dry white wine.
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