Gewurztraminer, the Bayern Munich of Forgotten Grapes

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Gewurztraminer:

German Engineering

At Its Finest...With or Without the Umlaut

Every four years, once Memorial Day finally rolls around and summer rests its sweet kiss upon our winter-numbed and spring-drowned lips, the collective minds here at Forgotten Grapes drift from our singular focus on all things vino to a round, octagonally-spotted orb and the quadrennial rite of passage and celebration of the world’s most favorite game.

I am, of course, referring to the Scripps-Howard National Spelling Bee...

Oh, who are we kidding? We’re talking soccer. Football. Fußball. The beautiful game. And the quadrennial Miss Universe pageant for the world’s best at the beautiful game is the World Cup, for which we could not be more excited.

What It Looks Like, What It Smells Like, and What It Tastes Like

Gewurztraminer looks like:

Gewurztraminer smells like:

Gewurztraminer tastes like:

We mentioned the perfumed bouquet to a Gewurztraminer that is its tell-tale mark: a nose full of primarily lychees but also roses, orange blossom, exotic and tropical fruits, and sometimes even sweet nuts like macadamia. There should also be a distinct spiciness to the wine’s nose, not spicy as in jalapeno and habanero spicy, but spicy as in nutmeg and coriander and rosemary. Interestingly, the nose may be the hardest thing to develop on a Gewurztraminer. If the grapes are picked too late (and they are grapes that require a long ripening period–hence the need for cooler climates–then the nose can end up underdeveloped and the wine will lose most of its signature bouquet.

It is in the flavor department where Gewurztraminers truly differ from their other German and Alsatian white grape brothers and sisters. Where most German/Alsatian whites have a firm, minerally crispness to them, Gewurztraminers tend to be softer, rounder wines in the mouth, still with a good acidic base but embraced by a creaminess, an almost velvety texture. Flavorwise, the taste leans toward soft, creamy lemon flavors, like lemon yogurt, lemon chiffon, or lemon birthday cake. Even dry Gewurztraminers tend to have sweeter flavors to them due to the grapes having a higher sugar content. This DOES NOT mean that there is any residual sugar in these wines, only that the fermented juice, while being 100% dry and devoid of sugar, just has a natural sweet flavor to it. Now you know, and knowing is half the battle. G.I. Joe!

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• Okay, so let’s get to the bottom of this umlaut thing once and for all. Gewurztraminer or Gewürztraminer? Which is the proper one to use? The answer: well, we really don’t know. In Germany and Austria, the umlaut is out in full effect on every bottle produced. However, you drive across the French border and that umlaut just disappears into oblivion – not a single dot to be seen above any U, let alone two. When you journey across the Atlantic? It goes both way. As you’ll see below, we found Oregon and California wineries that don’t use the umlaut and ones that do. So unfortunately, there is no hard and fast rule to determine when to use the umlaut and when not to (except for that Germany thing). Apparently, umlaut is in the eye of the beholder.

• We’ve mentioned that Gewurztraminer thrives in Germany, Austria, and the Alsatian region of France, but it also has quite a presence in other parts of the world. It can be found in come traces in the Alto Adiage region of Italy, right near the Austrian border, and pockets of the grape exist throughout Central Europe, in Hungary, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Slovakia, and Croatia. In the United States, it is found mostly in the cooler Monterey, Sonoma, and Mendocino county regions of California, along with up the coast in Oregon and Washington. There’s also small amounts of Gewurztraminer planted in the Finger Lakes region of New York, where white German varietals seem to thrive with the longer, cooler growing season. Gewurztraminer is grown all across Canada from Vancouver and the Okangan Valley in British Columbia all the way out to Prince Edward Island in the Atlantic. Again, because Gewurztraminer is a grape that adapts well to cooler temperatures and needs long growing period, it actually does well in Canada, though it seems it is more often than not used in late-harvest and ice wines up there. Gewurztraminer is also starting to make inroads in the Southern Hemisphere, with plantings in New Zealand and Chile. Of course, Gewurztraminer has existed for a long time in Australia, but it is typically bottled under decided not Gewurztraminer names down there such as Traminer Musqué and Gentil Rose Aromatique. But then again, if you know anything about Australians in general, this isn’t that shocking a fact.

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Fun Facts to Impress/Bore People At Parties

From Brein’s Brain to Your Plate

“So the classic, classic pairing with a Gewurztraminer is anything spicy and with Asian flavors involved. Typically Thai food, those go best with Gewurztraminers. But just to switch things up, let’s go with a different kind of spicy, how about a more Southwestern spicy with a Gewurz. Of course, I’m thinking something with jalapenos, and what I’d do is take Asian spring roll wraps, take some grilled chicken, some Jack cheese, some avocado, and then some jalapenos, roll those up and give them a quick fry. I think the good solid citrus-flavored acids of the Gewurztraminer will counter the savory mellowness of the chicken and cheese, and the wine’s same lemony citrus flavor will really cut through the heat of the jalapeno nicely. Plus, Gewurztraminer is one of the best pairings with avocado I’ve ever tasted. Similar soft pillowy mouth feel, but with enough acid to cut through the oily meatiness of the avocado.”

“Okay, so Gewurztraminer is typically known as a German/Alsatian wine, but what’s odd is that it doesn’t really pair all that well with the traditional foods of Germany or the Alsace. I mean, outside of maybe a Muenster cheese or an Emmental, German and Alsatian foods typically don’t have the spice that you’d want with a Gewurztraminer. But I can think of one exception: grilled bratwurst. I think the earthiness and really slight flavor of a bratwurst will actually pair well with the mellow acidity of a Gewurz. You need some kind of zip or kick in the wine to wake up a sausage that mellow, and a Gewurz will do it. Instead of beer, try bringing a Gewurztraminer with your brats to your next tailgate. You may get funny looks, but your palate will thank you. ”

“Okay, last pairing is going to be out of the box, but also one of those that you’re going to slap your head and go ‘Of course!” So you’ll hear a lot of description about Gewurztraminers tasting like lemon cake or lemon chiffon...basically a lemon pastry dessert. So what about pairing it with a slice of lemon cheesecake? I think you’re going to get some serious savoriness from the cheesecake, but the lemony freshness in the wine should really bring out the lemon flavors in the cake. I think that’s going to be an awesome pairing. You can thank me later.”

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Chef Brein Clements is the chef/owner of Bistro O (formerly Restaurant Omakase) in Riverside, CA, which is quickly becoming SoCal’s answer to Taillevant. Minus the molecular gastronomy. He began his cooking career at Domaine Chandon in the Napa Valley and moved on to become Chef de Cuisine at the famed Balboa Bay Club before opening his own restaurant. Plus he’s only 28. My man knows his wine and he knows his food. Each week he’ll provide ingredient and dish recommendations that match up well with the week’s forgotten grape. You should heed what he says. No, seriously, heed it.

Our Friend of the Forgotten Grapes Tasting Squadron tastes all of the wines you see here ahead of time to ensure that you aren’t getting anything rotten or clunky. We also try to ensure that most of the wines highlighted here are affordably priced ($20 or less) so you can try them out for yourself without having to take out a second mortgage or sacrificing your kid (or future kid’s) college fund to do so. Lastly, the Friends of the Forgotten Grapes has relationships with all the fine wine purveyors we link to in this section. We know them, we trust them. You can order these wines from them online right now and be trying them out in the next couple of days. Do yourself a favor and order from them by using the links below. It’s totally worth it. And tell them that ForgottenGrapes.com sent you, too.

Like many of the German grapes we’ve already highlighted here at Forgotten Grapes (Pinot Blanc, Silvaner, Müller Thurgau) Gewurztraminer can have a very pale yellowish to almost clear color to it. In the case of Gewurztraminer, it can emulate the cooler Alsatian style of wines and have an almost gray color to it. This grayness comes from the fact that Gewurztraminer grapes actually have a pinkish skin to them, as opposed to the greenish skins of Pinot Blanc, Silvaner, and other Germanic grapes. Even though the juice is typically pressed out of the skins and pulp immediately and afforded no contact (thus disallowing any off-coloration) some tint may still get into the juice, which is why some Gewurztraminers will possess a particular gray color to them. The typical rule of thumb is, the colder the climate, the paler the German wine will be.

Go On. Try It. You’ll Like It.

2008 Halleck Vineyard Russian River Valley Piner Creek Ranch Dry Gewurztraminer

Normally when we review our wines, we’ll start with the example from the birthplace of the wine and then delve into the New World versions. But since Jennifer was so kind to us in agreeing to the interview, we thought we’d start with her Gewurztraminer. So the Halleck Gewurztraminer has some sweetness and spice to it on the nose, what some of us were calling Ginger Snaps, while others got a very clean, almost cardboard-like scent that was equated to fresh linens. Either way, it was a very German nose to the wine with not a lot of fruit in the bouquet. On the palate, we were met with a dry club soda taste right on the attack, and this Gewurztraminer had drier stronger acids than some of the others we tasted. It wasn’t as balanced as others, but it did lighten up substantially across the mid-palate and downshift into some smooth citrus and lemon yogurt flavors on the tip of the tongue across the rest of the sip before finishing brightly. Definitely a bright, refreshing wine and probably the closest nose-wise we found to classic German Gewurztraminers. You can order this wine directly from Jennifer and Halleck Vineyard by visiting their website here and clicking away. And if you do, tell her Forgotten Grapes sent you.

2008 “Hugel” Alsace Gewurztraminer

Our quintessential Alsatian Gewurztraminer, Hugel is one of the super producers over in that region of France and you can find their wines in many, many stores across this great land of ours. In this case, the wine exhibited that tell-tale pale straw color, super light, almost clear color of an Alsatian white, bordering on gray as a proper Gewurztraminer from there should. This wine had a big nose to it that opened up to lemon cheesecake, pineapple, powdered sugar, and even some orange blossom florals as it swirled in the glass. A faint hint of sweet right off the bat and on the tip of the tongue immediately gave way to some big acids that built and then faded, giving way to yellow apple flavor and even some macadamia nut flavors. This wine was incredibly soft and round in the mouth, which actually may have been a negative; we typically like our Gewurztraminers to have a little bit more of an acidic bite, and this one tasted a little flat to us. The flavors darkened as they moved across the palate. It’s a wine that will definitely need some food to be paired with it. As we said, you can find this in many stores all over; we got ours at Wine House in Los Angeles; if you can find your Wine House equivalent wherever you live, then you’ve already won half the battle. Yo Joe!

2007 Foris Oregon Dry Gewürztraminer

Our first Gewürztraminer with an umlaut comes from Oregon, where they currently seem to be knocking some Alsatian varietals (Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris) out of the park. You may remember Foris from our tasting of their Pinot Blanc, and we’re happy to report that their Gewürztraminer is just as good. Paler, grayer, and nearly clear compared to the Hugel Alsatian, this wine had a more immediate nose; it wasn’t necessarily bigger, but more upfront an pungent. A sharp nose with scents of Peach Jolly Ranchers and unripened pears, there weren’t as many of the trademark floral scents on this particular Gewuztraminer as one might expect. Flavorwise, this one didn’t have the touch of sweetness early on the tip of the tongue that the others had, and it got drier and drier across the palate. One of our tasters picked up yellow or lemon wedding cake with butter cream flavors–that soft sour and creamy combination. There was definitely some spice on the back end of this wine as well. Our good Friends at Foris were kind enough to send this bottle our way, and we think you should return the favor by picking up a bottle from their website. The wine retails for $13.50, which is a terrific bargain. Definitely get a bottle to try it, and don’t forget to pick up one of their Pinot Blancs on the way.

2008 Thomas Fogarty Monterey County Gewürztraminer

If you are looking for a true hotbed of Gewurztraminer production in the United States, outside of the state of Washington, we’d have to say that California’s Monterey County would be it. Northerly enough and close enough to the ocean to temper the hot spring and summer days with cool fog and chilly nights, Monterey seems to be becoming Gewurztraminer country, as we’ve seen dozens of them being produced in this area. However, the Thomas Fogarty is the only one we remember actually putting the umlaut on the bottle. Take that for whatever it means. We have to say right off the bat, the initial nose on this wine threw us for a loop: it was super funky with vegetal and herbal scents and even a little bit of grass (the freshly mown kind, not the illegal kind; get your mind out of the gutter, pervert!). It opened up to decidedly Sauvignon Blanc-like characteristics, with a little more orange, guava, mango, and hibiscus scents to it. All in all, very tropical for a Gewurztraminer. It also had a much more golden color than some of the other Gewurztraminers we tried. In the mouth, though, we found the wine to be incredibly balanced, buzzing us with some good, bright acidity but then rounding off with a surprisingly soft mouth feel. The finish on this wine was also very unique, lots of softer guava and grass flavors that lingered across the tongue mid-palate, whereas the others seemed to hover at the tip. Grapefruits and breadfruits on the finish, this wine seemed rounder, fuller, and just plain different than the others. But we liked it. We liked it a lot. This was a Gewurz more likely to be able to stand on its own and not need food to compliment it than the others. The Thomas Fogarty website has this available, and we recommend picking some up, as it provides an interesting contrast to some of the other Gewurztraminers you might find.

But before the world’s best players take the pitch down in South Africa to duke it out for national pride, world supremacy, and a funky and surprisingly small golden trophy, there was a dramatic appetizer staged just a couple of weeks back that served as a scintillating and tasty appetizer before the main course kicks off June 11th.

That appetizer was the UEFA Champion’s League final, staged May 22nd between the footballing champions of Italy Inter Milan and the footballing champions of Germany Bayern Munich. Watching that match – in which Inter triumphed 2-nil giving the Nerazzuri an elusive treble (winning their domestic league, domestic cup, and the Champions League in a single season) and allowing their coach Jose “The Special One” Mourinho to cash a $20 million check as coach of (the reviled by us) Real Madrid – we were duly impressed by Bayern Munich, and watching their improbable march into the finals this year, the connections between Bayern Munich and this week’s Forgotten Grape Gewurztraminer were immediately crystalized.

You see, in addition to being the Champions of Germany this season, Bayern Munich are easily the biggest, most popular, and most successful football club to come out of Germany. Likewise, Gewurztraminer (guh-VURTS-truh-meen-ur) is easily the biggest, most popular, and most successful white wine grape to come out of Germany. In the 55 years they have played in the Bundesliga (the top professional league of German football), Bayern have won the league championship an astonishing 22 times and finished runner up nine times. They are clearly the dominant team of Germany. Likewise, Gewurztraminer could also be considered the dominant white grape of Germany (step aside, Riesling), and if there were league championships contested among the finest wine grapes in the country, we’re sure Gewurztraminer would have as many, if not more, trophies than Bayern.

But the connections between Gewurztraminer and Bayern Munich go beyond just the popularity and achievements of each. While German football is traditionally known for its precision and workmanlike performances, Bayern has always been a team that has worn its talent and flair on its sleeve, fielding superstar teams and playing an attractive game while others mired in ruthlessly efficient defense and possession. Gewurztraminer is a wine that also wears its flair on its sleeve, or in this case on its bouquet: highly perfumed with aromas of lychee and spices (in fact, the “Gewurz” portion of Gewurztraminer actually translates to “spiced.”). Most of the top wine producers produce Gewurztraminer wines of some sort, and unlike other German whites, Gewurztraminers can be aged for long periods of time, upwards of ten years, and improve in the bottle thanks to the higher natural sugar content in the grapes before fermentation.

Interestingly, much like how football (or fußball, as they call it) has become the national sport of Germany and a sport they dominate at despite the sport originating somewhere else entirely (in this case, England), Gewurztraminer is a grape that while flourishing in Germany, was originally born in Italy, in the northeast Tyrol/Alto Adiage region that shares a border with Austria. This may explain Gewurztraminer’s need for cool climates to fully ripen and express itself.

It should also be pointed out that much like how Germany and Brazil dominate the World Cup every four years (little known fact: either Germany or Brazil has been a part of every World Cup final except for four), Germany shares its Gewurztraminer glory with its neighbor to the west France, where Gewurztraminer is the second-most-grown grape in the much disputed Alsatian region (a section of France the Germans have often thought was part of their own).

However, on top of all this, there’s one truly defining factor that conjoins Bayern Munich and Gewurztraminer together, one factor that goes beyond their worldwide popularity, their inherent Germanness, even beyond the quality both exhibit on a regular basis.

It is that both can be enjoyed either with or without an umlaut.

So whether you consider yourself a fan of Bayern Munich or Bayern München, or whether you pick up a bottle of Gewurztraminer or Gewürztraminer, you can always have the confidence of knowing that what you’re getting is the best Germany has to offer. In
either football or wine.

Trust us, you do not want to get us started on Dirk Nowitzki or beer right now.

2008 Ventana Arroyo Seco Estate Gewurztraminer

For our next Gewurztraminer we take a quick jaunt down Highway 101 from Thomas Fogarty, staying in Monterey County but traveling high into the southeastern hills that create the natural southern border of the county. This area is the Arroyo Seco AVA, and it’s the home to the Ventana Vineyards winery, which gives us our next Gewurztraminer (and again, no umlaut despite what Fogarty did). We got lots of spice right off the bat on this Gewurztraminer–nutmeg, cinnamon, clove–along with a little bit of a plasticy scent and that artificial, somewhat sweetened fake banana smell they put in the banana candies. The attack of this wine dangled on the precipice separating sweet and sour. It definitely had the strongest acidic bite of all the wines we tasted, but was not too sharp; everything remained in nice balance. There was a sweet lemon flavor and a full mouth feel. Some of our tasters thought the flavors were Meyer lemon while at least one person thought it was closer to Sunny Delight, especially if you poured a few packets of Equal or other artificial sweetener into your glass. There were darker notes on the finish, but this was easily the sweetest New World Gewurztraminer that we tasted. Sharpest acids and sweetest...sounds like my prom date. Anyway, you should visit the Ventana Vineyards website and pick some of this up. It will blow your wine-loving friends minds when they try to decipher whether this is really a sweet wine with sour notes, or a dry wine with some sweet notes. And anything that causes chaos among the wine intelligentia is alright by us.

2007 Claiborne & Churchill Central Coast Dry Gewürztraminer

Last but certainly not least, we hop back in the car and head further south along Highway 101 to the Edna Valley, a wine region not known for its Gewurztraminer. But our good friends Clay Thompson and Fredericka Churchill at Claiborne & Churchill are bucking the trend and producing a Central Coast Gewürztraminer (avec umlaut, and if you’re keeping track, that’s three with umlaut and three without–a draw) that we just had to include. We’ll admit that things started off a bit rough, as the wine had an incredibly funky nose with lots of barnyard scents and perhaps even a whiff of sulphur. For a second, we thought the bottle might have been bad. But it definitely opened up into a sun-touched, sugar-coated lime and orange scents on the nose. Easily this was the most feminine Gewurztraminer we tried, staying soft all the way through and really keeping those acids in check.. Very clean citrus flavors ran through this wine, not lemony like some of the others, but a softer citrus that was most delicious. We love everything Claiborne & Churchill does (and just visited them on our most recent Paso Robles trip, so we highly recommend you drink their wines. Here’s their website where you can buy from. Go to it!

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But Don’t Just Take Our Word for It...

Whenever possible, Friends of the Forgotten Grapes will offer up a short interview with a winemaker working with the week’s featured Forgotten Grape. It’s his or her chance to tell you a little bit more about who they are, the winery and wines, and how he or she got started working with this particular Forgotten Grape. We do this because we want you to get to know the winemakers and better understand their mind set and passions for particular Forgotten Grapes. We also do this because we’re givers and only want to make you happy. Isn’t that enough for you? What more do you want?

This week’s interview is with Jennifer Halleck, co-owner of Halleck Vineyard in Sebastopol, California in the Sonoma valley. Jennifer founded Halleck Vineyard with her then-husband Ross back in 1993, with their first harvest coming in 1999; today the two of them still own and run the winery, with Jennifer handling many, many of the day-to-day duties around the shop, including sourcing vineyards; handling the bottling, labeling and packaging; all sales as well as the marketing and promotion ends of the spectrum. And if you were smart enough to pick up on the “then” mention earlier in this paragraph, you’ll get a better sense of why Jennifer is truly one of the amazing women of wine. Oh, did we also mention that she’s mother to three boys separated by only four years in age? Yeah, all the women (and men) reading this should bow down and massage Jennifer’s feet for what she puts up with. Anyway, she amazingly found time out of her slammed schedule to talk with Forgotten Grapes about Halleck Vineyard and her Gewurztraminer, so here she is:

Friends of the Forgotten Grapes: So what’s a nice girl like you doing in the winemaking business?

Jennifer Halleck: After Ross and I met in 1990, we moved to Sonoma County with the hopes of planting a vineyard. While Ross continued his marketing business, I stayed home raising our three sons and oversaw the planting of the vineyard. When the youngest boy entered Kindergarten, I met another Kindergarten parent, Greg LaFollette who had just moved to Sebastopol to start a winery and custom crush facility. I was "ripe" to begin a new career and my love of agriculture, chemistry, people, fine wine and food all came together at once. Greg took me under his wing and taught me about winemaking and viticulture. I began to work at other wineries in the tasting room, then for a broker on the streets and in 2002, Ross and I started our own label, Halleck Vineyard, in the hopes of starting a college fund for our boys.

FoFG: And what’s a nice grape like Gewurztraminer doing in the Russian River Valley?

JH: I've never understood why pockets of Gewurztraminer were planted here but there is a little. We feel very fortunate to work with this beautiful grape from the Balletto Vineyard just north of Sebastopol. The first time we tried Dry Gewurztraminer was Larry Londer's Anderson Valley Dry Gewurztraminer and we instantly fell in love. We knew we wanted a Russian River Valley Dry Gewurztraminer.

FoFG: On top of your Gewurztraminer, Halleck Vineyard grows and produces quite a few different Pinot Noirs, which is a notoriously fickle grape to both grow and craft into quality wines (though you do a fantastic job at both!). Are there aspects of the Pinot growing/winemaking process that you’ve found have helped you in your work with Gewurztraminer, or are they entirely different grapes with different characteristics and different winemaking techniques required?

JH: The Gewurztraminer grape is a very easy grape to work with unlike Pinot Noir. Once it is processed and in tank, we can just sit back and watch it develop. It does goes through some very murky transitions throughout the first few months (like the Pinot while in barrel) and we are always happy at the end to see it develop into this beautiful wine. As for growing the Gewurztraminer, what we like to do is to leave the grapes on the vine until they are perfectly ripe and flavorful. Ours are always picked well after other Gewurztrminer grapes in the area. This flavor is what we are looking for along with great aromatics while still keeping good acid. The aromatics are so pungent that you can smell it in the vineyard. When we pick the grapes they are very "pink" - a mixture of green to red brown. Then, after developing all this flavor, we let the wine ferment until it is bone-dry there is no sugar left. The wine is not sweet and it is not bitter. It has wonderful aromas, a luscious mouth-feel, smooth finish, loads of flavor and nice acids.

FoFG: Gewurztraminer is a varietal that is gaining popularity both in California and Oregon, and you find more and more wineries growing and working with the grape? Why do you think this is, and what sets Halleck’s Gewurztraminer apart from some of the other California Gewurztraminers being produced?

JH: As consumers become more familiar with wine in general they are beginning to experiment with all sorts of new grapes and Gewurztraminer is one of those grapes. The more you learn about wine the more you realize how much you don't know and how much there is to learn. Some consumers enjoy that learning process. What sets our Gewurztraminer apart form the others that I have tasted is that it is bone-dry and lusciously smooth with high aromatics.

FoFG: You’ve worked in a lot of different areas of the wine business—from the cellars to the tasting room to outside sales. How did these particular jobs help prepare you for launching Halleck Vineyards, and is there one of them, including owning and running a winery, that you found either more rewarding or more challenging than the others?

JH: While I have become very good at excel spreadsheets, maneuvering the Oakland Airport and making friends everywhere I go, my heart is in the cellar with the wine and in the vineyard with the rows of grapes. I have discovered that I particularly enjoy using my brain to creatively market, to analyze the business, etc.

What I love most about the making wine is watching the whole process from start to finish. It's incredible to look at a glass of my wine and know that I have nurtured it all along the way from baby leaves to green flowers to purple clusters to juice in barrel, then into bottles and finally into our glass where we can all enjoy it. It's not so unlike motherhood. The whole process is the reward. The pleasure is in drinking it but the joy is in knowing all that went into making it.

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