A Thin Field of American Gewürztraminers

By Eric Asimov June 21, 2010

I’VE been a big fan of California gewürztraminers for a long time. Let me be more precise. I’ve felt that many California gewürztraminers, particularly those from the Anderson Valley in Mendocino County, were exactly the sorts of dry, lively, aromatic wines that would make almost anybody fall in love with this unusual, idiosyncratic grape. Or maybe not. I may be a pushover for a good gewürztraminer, but its attractions are by no means universal. Its exotic aroma, often described as a combination of litchis, grapefruit and roses, can have a polarizing effect, like cilantro or licorice. Some people simply hate it. Others are mystified by it because it’s so different from the usual run of dry, crisp white wines. But many California winemakers love it. It’s rarely any estate’s most important wine, but I’ve always been surprised by how many producers make a little gewürztraminer on the side, especially because I almost never see people in restaurants actually drinking it. I drink it pretty infrequently myself. Nonetheless, I love dry gewürztraminer with Cantonese food, even if this oft-cited recommendation has become a cliché, and I think gewürztraminer is more versatile with food than its singular aroma would lead one to believe. Feeling this way, I was eager and excited at the recent prospect of a wine panel tasting of 20 American gewürztraminers. I was hoping to discover some new producers to recommend, and looked forward to discussing how rewarding these wines could be. Instead, to my surprise and to the panel’s, we were tremendously disappointed by the wines, finding a bare 9 to recommend, not our usual 10. For the tasting, Florence Fabricant and I were joined by two guests, David Gordon, the wine director at Tribeca Grill, and Rebecca Foster, a former sommelier who now works for Tempranillo, an importer and distributor mostly of Spanish wines. We did not limit ourselves to California bottles, or to the Anderson Valley. Maybe the wines would have fared better if we had, but the sad fact is that Anderson Valley gewürztraminers are difficult to find. Some of the best, like Navarro and Lazy Creek, are available only in restaurants or directly from the wineries. Others, like Londer or Husch, you may find in retail shops if you are lucky. We ended up with nine wines from New York State, six from California, three from Washington and two from Oregon. So what went wrong? Better to ask, what didn’t? Some of the wines had off aromas or flavors, characteristics that you rarely encounter in modern wines. Others were reminiscent of the dry rieslings of Germany in the 1990s, when the term “dry” was taken too literally and almost every last bit of sugar was wrung out of the wines, leaving them brittle and acerbic.

Wines with appreciable levels of acidity, like riesling, chenin blanc and Champagne, need at least a little bit of residual sugar for balance. Gewürztraminer, too, though it doesn’t have as much acidity as these other wines, needs a touch of sweetness — perhaps not even enough to notice — if only so it will seem pleasingly dry rather than coarse and strident. “Dry doesn’t have to mean a total lack of residual sugar,” said David, who described some of the wines as painful to drink. Of course, the gewürztraminers of Alsace, the grape’s home territory, all too often have a surplus of sugar, so balance with this grape is not necessarily easy to achieve. We found other problems as well. Some of the wines lacked sufficient concentration, and tasted diluted. Others were oddly simple, lacking even the slightest degree of depth. Often, we sensed a disconnect between the aromas, which might resemble the classic scent of gewürztraminer, and the flavors, which seemed muted. “If you’re going to make gewürztraminer, you know you’re not going to make money on it,” Rebecca mused. “So why bother if you’re not going to do it right?” All of our complaints should not obscure the fact that we did find some good wines, though from some unexpected areas. Oregon is not known for gewürztraminer, nor is it known for the Umpqua Valley, a region south of the Willamette Valley with a climate apparently cool enough for good gewürztraminer. I wish we had found more wines like our No. 1 bottle, the 2007 Brandborg, rich, floral and pink-hued with just enough residual sugar to give the wine flesh. Incidentally, at $15, the Brandborg was also our best value.

Our No. 2 bottle came from the Finger Lakes of New York, which makes sense when you think about it, since, like Alsace, the Finger Lakes region is also a good place for riesling. The 2007 from Dr. Konstantin Frank, one of my favorite New York riesling producers, was restrained and pretty, with the classic gewürztraminer flavors. And what about California? Of the six bottles from California, only one came from the Anderson Valley. Sadly, that bottle, a 2008 from Handley Cellars,

did not make our cut. It was one bottle where the attractive aromas seemed dissociated from the reticent flavors. We had a 2008 from Stony Hill, another of my favorite gewürztraminer producers, but unfortunately that bottle was corked. Sigh. Our top bottle from California, No. 3 in our tasting, was the 2007 Thomas Fogarty from Monterey County, which had an almost Alsatian richness and purity, with a fine, balancing acidity. No region came off particularly well in our tasting, not even the Finger Lakes, which had four of our top nine bottles. Both the 2007 from Red Newt Cellars at $38 and the 2007 from Hermann J. Wiemer at $22 did not offer much value for the price. Tastings like this one are quick snapshots. Ours unfortunately came out a bit blurred. I still have confidence in Anderson Valley gewürztraminers, and I will look out for the small California gewürztraminer producers that I have enjoyed in the past, like Stony Hill and Corazón from Cathy Corison, the noted Napa cabernet producer, who gets her gewürztraminer grapes from the Anderson

Valley. I will also keep my eyes open for Bedrock Wine Company, which uses the same old vines in the Compagni Portis Vineyard in Sonoma County that used to go into the excellent Bucklin gewürztraminer. Otherwise I will pick my bottles carefully. Tasting Report: Floral Aromas With a Bit of Sweetness Brandborg $15 ★★ ½ BEST VALUE Oregon Umpqua Valley 2007 Full, rich, fresh and balanced with spicy floral aromas and a touch of sweetness. Dr. Konstantin Frank $16 ★★ ½ New York Finger Lakes 2007 Balanced, restrained and pretty with straightforward floral and grapefruit aromas and flavors. Thomas Fogarty $15 ★★ ½ California Monterey County 2007 Clear, true grapefruit and floral aromas; touch of sweetness. Hook & Ladder $16 ★★ California Russian River Valley 2008 Balanced and energetic with aromas of flowers, honey and lemon. Anthony Road $16 ★★ New York Finger Lakes 2008 Floral and slightly sweet but balanced and pleasing. Chateau Ste. Michelle $10 ★★ Washington Columbia Valley 2008 Lively, fresh yet simple with aromas of flowers and grapefruit. Red Newt Cellars $38 ★ ½ New York Finger Lakes Sawmill Creek Vineyards 2007 Dry and restrained with aromas of flowers. Hermann J. Wiemer $22 ★ ½ New York Finger Lakes 2007 Simple and straightforward with a touch of sweetness. Halleck Vineyard $36 ★ ½ California Russian River Valley Pine Creek Ranch 2006 Aromas of citrus and flowers, but acidity is out of balance.