Gewürztraminer Background Information

"In Vino Veritas" (Truth in Vine)

Updated 04/06/2007

    If you have additions/corrections/comments to the information, please contact me with your information

    Find my personal tasting experiences with Gewürztraminer under What's in My Wine Cellar

    Gewürztraminer is pronounced: 

, or called simply "gewürz", "gewürzt", GW, or Traminer, it may be hard to say but it's well worth the effort. Editor's note: The above pronunciations are all found on the internet or in reference books; no wonder people are reluctant to try it! But one is just as good as the next.

    The Gewürztraminer varietal grape is grown in limited areas of the world, in particular, the region of Alsace, France. Wine texts report that "gewürz" translates from German as "spicy"; so literally Gewürztraminer means "spice grape", or as many prefer, "perfumed grape", or "aromatic grape". From Saveur.com  - "It seems possible that Gewürztraminer vines were first imported into Alsace from the Pfalz, just west of the Rhine, as early as the 16th century, but given the fuzziness that surrounds the history of grape varieties before the 19th century, it’s also quite possible that Traminer and Gewürztraminer coexisted without much distinction until rather recent times.
   According to Francis Burn, whose family has been vignerons in the elegant walled town of Gueberschwihr for three centuries, southern Alsace was the cradle for Gewürztraminer, while Riesling prevailed farther north. There is no consensus about the best sites for the grape today, but the Vosges Mountains are indeed higher at the southern end of the appellation, creating a drier microclimate and healthier conditions for late-ripening varietals like Gewürztraminer."

    A varietal wine is a specific type of wine, named after a grape variety such as Gewürztraminer or  Riesling. According to U.S. law, varietal wines must consist of 75% of the named grape variety. 

    The French began calling this prized grape; Traminer musqué, Traminer parfumé, or Traminer aromatique; the Germans -  roter (or red) Traminer; and the Italians -  Traminer rosé, Traminer rosso, or termener aromatico.  Gewürztraminer, is sometimes referred to as a clone or clonal of the parent Traminer variety. (Actually a clone would be an identical duplicate of the original, but in wine terminology, it's a variation of the parent); Gewürztraminer could be referred to as a mutated Traminer grape.  In the late 19th century, the Alsatians began calling this vine gewürztraminer, with the name gaining popularity after 1947, although it wasn't until 1973 that this name was officially sanctioned.

    Although the word " Gewürztraminer" is the most commonly seen, the wines from Alsace are labeled "Gewurztraminer", without the umlaut. It is this editor's opinion that the French prefer not to use the German version due to the so many historical occupations of the Alsace region by Germany.  After a little more historical reading, it appears that the Alsatians don't have a great deal of love for other regions of France, being at odds with them, for various reasons, over a long time period. What further promotes the confusion are wine books using the German " Gewürztraminer" rather than the Alsatian in describing its' wines. Where you see Alsatian Gewurztraminer advertised, the umlaut is most certainly left off as a convenience to the writer/publisher.

    Alsace has achieved the most success with Gewürztraminer. When buying Alsatian wine, keep in mind that any mention of a specific vineyard on the label is generally a positive sign. Look also for special cuvées (usually followed by a name, as with Domaine Weinbach Gewurztraminer Cuvée Theo), the word clos (which indicates a solely owned vineyard of very high quality, like Domaine Zind-Humbrecht Gewurztraminer Clos Windsbuhl Hunawihr), and the word réserve, which is far less abused in Alsace than it is in the rest of the world. Those houses that pay specific attention to and take particular pride in their Gewurztraminer include Léon Beyer, Schlumberger, and Zind-Humbrecht.

    Gewürztraminer wines, outside of Alsace, France, are usually made in a slightly sweet to medium sweet white style to counter the grape's tendency toward bitterness, though there are wineries shifting to the Alsatian style. Dry versions notably produced in the Alsace region are very well received around the world, though in many cases little known of. 

    Because they perform better in cooler climates, Gewürztraminer grapes have not done well in many of California's warmer growing regions. However, they thrive in cooler California areas, as well as in parts of Oregon, Washington, New York, and Canada. They're also cultivated in Germany, Austria, Hungary, Rumania, Czechoslovakia, and Ukraine. "Down under", New Zealand's (see New Zealand clonal varietal info) cooler climate is better than Australia's for this grape. Cool climate growers should be aware that, in addition to quite large successful plantings of the above variety, a well-regarded cross named Traminette, developed by Cornell University in the U.S.A over the last 30+ years, is currently very successfully cultivated on small commercial acreages in the Finger Lakes region of New York State and several other cool northern regions of the USA.

    Gewürztraminer shares the same distinct aromatic character of flowery and spicy perfumes as the Muscat family. Gewürztraminer is a friendly grape with rich, pungent character and flavors that are almost always rich, full-bodied and powerful, though usually with only moderate acidity. The bouquet on this type of wine is like you've fallen nose first into a field of spring flowers. The Gewürztraminer nose is incredible, a mix of roses and lychee fruit, ripe pears, tropical fruit, grapefruit and even sweet spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, peach stone, and star anise. This trait separates it from the most of the rest of the world's wines and makes it easy to identify. 

    Fans of German wines will find much that is familiar in Alsace, including the rather Germanic-looking labels and the tall, thin flûtes that are the region's signature bottles. But there's an important difference: Alsatian wines are bone-dry. (The only exceptions are special, and usually high-priced, wines labeled "Vendange Tardive" -- late harvest -- which can be sweet but are usually not; and "Sélection des Grains Nobles", which are botrytis-infected dessert wines of almost unbelievable sweetness and richness. Though Gewürztraminer would be thought a specialty in Germany, some producers give it less priority than other varietals and make accordingly dull wines. 

    Gewürztraminer sharply divides opinions; many people can't stand its overwhelming spiciness and intense, "oily" (unctuous) flavor. Those who love it appreciate its unique character as an alternative to, well, just about anything. With age, it becomes spicier, more strongly flavored, and even less appealing to non-devotees. Some experts usually suggest drinking Gewürztraminer wines soon after bottling to take best advantage of their fresh flavor, but some of the best can bottle age for several years or more. 

    According to Saveur.com - "Gewurztraminer is the black sheep and the prodigal child of Alsatian wine. Nearly everyone who tastes it either adores it or detests it. Nearly everyone who makes it semi-secretly prefers some other grape. It is macho, flamboyant, baroque, exuberant, often delicious, sometimes stunning, and always distinctive. The trademark varietal in one of France’s greatest gastronomic regions—almost all the world’s production, except for trickles in Germany, Italy, eastern Europe, and North America, is concentrated in Alsace, between the Vosges Mountains and the Rhine—it is as bad a companion to most food as artichokes are to most wine."

    And from Saveur.com - "There are two main types of Gewürztraminer in Alsace are, “classic” and late-harvest, and two official quality categories, Alsace A.O.C., which may come from any portion of the appellation, and Alsace Grand Cru A.O.C., which must be made from grapes grown in one of 50 designated vineyards, mostly in the foothills of the Vosges, whose reputation for excellence has been well documented. As in Burgundy, grands crus are held to higher standards (that is, lower yield and higher sugar) than other vineyards are.
   Alsace also recognizes an unofficial tier of sites that are named but are not entitled to grand cru status. Grand cru Gewürztraminers are usually bigger, richer, fatter, and better than their simple A.O.C. counterparts—but they’re not necessarily superior to some of these unofficially designated vineyards. Léonard Humbrecht, the garrulous vigneron whose Zind Humbrecht wines receive top ranking from critics, is a famously vocal proponent of the grand cru system
in Alsace—but he is also proprietor of a number of designated vineyards, among them Windsbuhl, Hauserer (at Wintzenheim), and Herrenweg, which yield Gewürztraminers absolutely as good as most grands crus."

    Gewürztraminer is the second most widely planted grape in Alsace and the most widely planted in the Haut-Rhin where it is particularly well suited to the clay-rich soils found in the Vosges foothills. It is normally fermented dry and produces golden, medium to full-bodied wine with heady aromas of  lychees, rose petals and white peaches. It attains naturally high sugar levels far in excess of Riesling and this makes it ideal for sweet, late harvest wines. These can be unctuously sweet and luscious and the best can last for decades. Hugel and Zind-Humbrecht consistently produce the finest Gewürztraminer wines in Alsace. Source

    Following in the steps of the Alsatians, a few U.S. wineries make a dry Gewürztraminer (ex. Navarro Vineyards). The majority, however, produce wines with a perceptible sweetness. Fermentation is cold and aging takes place primarily in stainless steel, allowing the perfumey rather than spicy qualities of Gewürztraminer to develop. But because of those distinctive, pronounced flavors, Gewürztraminer can stand some fermentation and aging in oak, where it develops greater complexity and the ability to mature gracefully longer. Gewürztraminer makes an excellent sipping wine and is a nice companion to hors d'oeuvres. Source

    In California, winemakers tend to vinify Gewürztraminer as a lighter-bodied, slightly sweet wine, apparently for fear their customers will object to the slight bitterness that characterizes the wine when it is fermented to dryness.

    In their book The Wall Street Journal Guide to Wine, New and Improved by Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher, authors of the popular weekly "Tastings" column. Chapter Eight page 77-78,  Gewürztraminer - A Little Pepper with Your Wine?, 2002, 2nd Edition; this wine loving couple say,  "But we've generally found that American Gewürzes to be a bit sweet and clumsy, and since they tend to cost as much as the real thing, from Alsace, why bother? After all, the real thing is a natural wonder: extremely dry, with an unmistakable pepperiness and a little taste of earth. " 

    But who can say what the "real thing" really is? If Gewürztraminer had originated in California, perhaps a sweeter flavor would have been the "real thing" ? It's all in the manner of one own's taste. I've tasted some Alsatian Gewürztraminers, and personally, I would prefer a slightly sweeter or semi-dry taste versus the bone-dry varieties. But that's me and my "sweet-tooth" talking. Next update I'll add some of Robert M. Parker, Jr.'s comments.

Gewürztraminer's Future?

    Finally from Saveur.com - "The top producers of Gewürztraminer in Alsace today seem to have differing opinions on its future.  Francis Burn, whose Goldert Grand Cru wines win awards often and who calls Gewürztraminer his “desert island wine”, is stubbornly optimistic. “The Gewürztraminer customer used to be an aging grandmother,” he observes, “but now it is a man in his 40s. Men drink less dry now.” Jean-Michel Deiss, on the other hand, thinks the grape is being used incorrectly. Most Gewürztraminer in Alsace, he explains, used to end up in field blends with Riesling, Sylvaner, Muscat, and Chasselas. In this context, the grape’s aromatic properties were an asset. After World War I, when Alsace reverted from German to French control, local vintners sought to upgrade their wines by replanting vineyards and abandoning field blends in favor of varietal bottling. But as they replanted Gewürztraminer, Deiss continues, they propagated the most aromatic clones available—thus the “monster” wines some people can’t stand. “The future of Gewürztraminer,” says Deiss unambiguously, “is that we return to Traminer.” Or, alternatively, to field-blend wines. “Put the harmony of the landscape back in the bottle,” says Deiss passionately. “We have been dealing with caricature. Let’s allow terroir to play its unifying role.” (To prove his point, Deiss now makes two astonishing field-blend wines, Burg Gentil and Altenberg Grand Vin de Bergheim.)"

    And a note from this website's editor to vineyard owners and winemakers throughout the world, "Please don't allow Gewürztraminer to become a forgotten wine, especially here in the U. S.

     Perhaps you have written it off already, but through creative advertising/marketing, it could once again rise to the wine world position it deserves. Look what happened to other popular varietals; people's taste and mood change, but history seems to repeat itself throughout the ages.

    Maybe changing its' name back to Traminer is a start in the right direction? Other countries often use the term in place of Gewürztraminer, Australia in particular seems to do so."

    With Alsace, France Gewurztraminers said to be the best, the winemakers of that region need to lower their bottles prices to levels that the average American wine drinker is willing to pay to try it. Importers must increase the supply, in quantity, quality, and label variety. 

    Get Americans aware of the wine, show and inform them on what's available. Get them back on the side of Gewurztraminer, or whatever you decide to call it and you'll have a hit once again.

   Characteristics: German and domestic Gewürztraminer tend to be sweet while those of Alsace, France tend to be dry. Typically deep in color, full bodied, rich, with moderate acidity. Fragrant with rose and  lychee, and flavors of spice, fruit, cinnamon, and honey. Ageing: Consume young, though some may benefit from 2-4 years of ageing. Rarely age well past 5 years. Serving temperature: Serve dry Gewürztraminer at a temperature of 50º-55º F, sweeter Gewürztraminer at 45º-50º F. Source

Gewürztraminer vs. Traminer

Here is an article written and graciously contributed to this website by Jancis Robinson. Credit the purple pages of www.jancisrobinson.com.

    "Gewurztraminer (Germans spell it Gewürztraminer) competes with Sauvignon Blanc as the beginner's grape - the one that is easiest for a newcomer to wine to recognise. With Sauvignon it's all about that unforgettable smell and a virtual absence of colour. With Gewurz, it's all about another unforgettable smell and one of the deepest colours of any white wine.

    This last is because, like Pinot Gris/Grigio, the skin of a Gewurz grape is actually pink, not pale green, so it is not surprising that pigments remain in the wine to give it a deep golden, sometimes copper colour.

    As for Gewurz's aroma, the first thing to say is that it is extremely powerful. If a sample of Gewurz does not have much smell then it was probably made from shockingly over-produced grapes. Then the smell is heady, for Gewurz the wine is usually high in alcohol - the grape (and wine) ripens easily. Its exact character is probably most accurately likened to the smell of lychees/litchis - that exotic, tropically-laden scent - with a fair measure of pungent rose petals and, in some of the most concentrated examples, a savoury element that some have likened to bacon fat. Sounds a strange combination? It is certainly a potentially combustive mixture, not a wine to take second place to food.

    This, I believe, is why Gewurz is not more commonly drunk and served. If my experience is anything to go by, Gewurz was one of the first wine tastes I fell for, because it is so opulent and easy to identify. But as I thought my tastes became more sophisticated, I tended to put Gewurz behind me - a childish thing perhaps, and one that can be difficult to match to food.

    Lazy tasters tend to describe the distinctive smell of Gewurztraminer as 'spicy' because the word Gewurz means 'spicy' in German, but in fact there is no single spice that is particularly like the smell of Gewurz. Here, 'spicy' was being used as a synonym for 'aromatic'. Some less fastidious producers blend in a bit of Muscat to give overcropped Gewurztraminer a bit more aroma.

    There was a time when it was accepted wisdom that Gewurztraminer went well with vaguely Asian, vaguely spiced food. But that was when western knowledge of the many hundreds of Asian cuisines was extremely limited. Today we understand a bit more, and I think probably realise that it's no good simply prescribing one grape variety for a whole, particularly vast continent. The French counsel drinking Gewurz with particularly - agriculturally - stinky soft cheese such as Munster, Maroilles or Livarot.

    The original, green-berried, not-particularly-aromatic forebear of Gewurz is Traminer, called after the village of Tramin (Termeno) in the Alto Adige in what is now the far north of Italy where it was particularly popular between the 11th and 16th centuries. Like many grape varieties however (Chardonnay included) an aromatic (Aromatico in Italian, Musqué in French) version evolved, in this case pink- berried, which came to be known variously as Traminer Aromatico or, in German, Gewurztraminer and sometimes Roter Traminer. Ampelographers, those who study vine identification, believe there is a very close relationship between the various Traminers and Savagnin, the grape responsible for some of the most distinctive white wines of the Jura region in eastern France.

    As Gewurz builds up particularly high sugar levels, its acid levels can fall to dangerously low levels. If some particularly ripe Gewurzes have a fault it is that they are unappetisingly low in acidity, so malolactic fermentation of this varietal is rare. As Gewurz ages it can rapidly become oily and, if extreme care has not been taken to avoid excessive extraction of phenolics from its deep-coloured skins, it can also be slightly bitter on the finish.

    Alsace in eastern France is Gewurz's most significant home ground (even though the plants grown there today were probably originally imported from Germany's Pfalz region across the Rhine). It performs best on the heavier, clay soils of Alsace's Haut-Rhin departement, and can quite easily attain the sort of ripeness needed for expensive late harvest bottlings labelled Vendange Tardive and Selection de Grains Nobles.

    Earlier-picked Alsace Gewurz should be pungent yet dry and powerful enough to accompany savoury food. Too often however the wine can be rather vapid and given perfume by a proportion of Muscat in the blend. Leon Beyer, Zind-Humbrecht, Mure, Schlumberger and Cattin are some of those producers who try hardest with their Gewurztraminers.

    Germany has only fraction as much (Roter) Traminer planted, mainly in Baden and Pfalz, where the wines produced vary between slightly lighter-bodied answers to Alsace Gewurz and sometimes heavy, even oily versions. These, as Gewurz in general, are not designed for ageing more than a very few years. (Time in bottle rarely concentrates that characteristic aroma but more usually dissipates it.)

    Austria has almost as much Traminer planted as Germany with the most successful, aromatic and lively examples coming mainly from Styria in the far south east. It is planted all over eastern and central Europe, called variously Mala Dinka (Bulgaria), Rusa (Romania), Traminac (Slovenia) and Tramini (Hungary, particularly on the rich soils round Lake Balaton). In Switzerland small quantities are grown as Haiden or Heida.

    Torres of Catalonia has long grown Gewurztraminer for its full bodied, aromatic Vina Esmeralda but perhaps the most delicate version is Vina del Vero's grown in the high altitude vineyards of Somontano in the north of Spain.

    In Italy some fine Traminer Aromatico is produced in Alto Adige, although many of the wines lack real concentration and are much lighter-bodied and higher in acidity than their counterparts in Alsace.

    Gewurz ripens so fast, it needs to be planted somewhere relatively cool if it is to develop any discernible perfume. This rules out many New World wine regions but some intersting examples have been produced in South Australia's Clare Valley, New Zealand's east coast, the cool new wine regions of Chile's deep south and in cooler corners of North America.

    It is clear that the Pacific Northwest is well suited to the variety but it is just not fashionable enough to maintain its slender hold on vineyard there in any significant fashion. Canada and New York state have a little planted and Navarro of Anderson Valley in northern California bravely keep making rare but delicious examples.

    While it is difficult to imagine an overwhelming craze for Gewurz which would see Chardonnay vines, for example, giving way to this full-bodied, scented alternative to any great extent, the wine world without Gewurztraminer would be a very much poorer place.

Some suggested bottles:
Léon Beyer, Comtes d'Eguisheim, Alsace
Schlumberger, Cuvée Catherine, Alsace
Muré, Clos St Landelin, Vorbourg, Alsace
Zind-Humbrecht, Rangen de Thann, Alsace
Faller, Cuvée Theo, Alsace
Rebholz, Pfalz
Hofstatter, Kolbenhof, Alto Adige
Viñas del Vero, Somontano, Spain
Stonecroft, New Zealand
Knappstein, Clare Valley, South Australia
Navarro, Anderson Valley, California

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    Alternate names: (Rot)clevner, Rousselet, Frencher, Edeltraube, Fromenteau Rouge, Gris Rouge, Dreimanner, Christkindltraube, Rotfranke, Kleinweiner, Ranfoliza, Fuszeres, Drumin, Ptinc Cerveny, Liwora, Rusa, Mala Dinka, Haiden Source 

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A good primer on Alsatian wine

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