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Wine Details
Price:
$18.00 per bottle
Description:
I have such appreciation for the superb quality of White Hills Gewürztraminer that I elected to make a Limited Release blend with this vintage. White Hills Gewürztraminer portrays the classic lychee flavors and spice characters of the varietal. Its warm notes of ginger, nutmeg and allspice make it the quintessential Gewürztraminer. These characteristics are only enhanced and enriched when the juice is given special treatment in barrels. Midway through a cold fermentation, I moved this wine from a stainless steel tank to one-year old French oak barrels. In the barrels, it fermented to dryness, without any residual sugar. This gave the wine a richer texture, and highlighted aromas of vanilla and jasmine. Before bottling, I blended in a slight percentage of Chardonnay for richer body, and to complement the sweet and spicy character of the Gewürztraminer.
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Varietal Definition
Traminer:
Parent grape of the popular Gewurztraminer clone. Still grown in France and in California but almost everywhere has been replaced by its much more intense and spicy offspring clone.
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Gewürztraminer:
Cultivated for over a thousand years, this white-wine grape (sometimes referred to simply as Traminer) is thought to have originated in the village of Tramin (or Temeno) in Italy’s Alto Adige region. Gewürztraminer grapes are planted in Alsace, a French region between Germany and France that specializes in excellent dry Gerwürztraminer wines. They’re also cultivated in Germany, Austria, Hungary, Rumania, Czechoslovakia, and Ukraine. 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 such as Carneros, Anderson Valley, and Monterey County, as well as in parts of Oregon and Washington. The German word ‘gewürz’ means ‘spiced,’ and these wines are known for their crisp, spicy attributes. They’re highly fragrant, with flavor characteristics of litchis, roses, and spices such as cloves and nutmeg. Gewürztraminer wines are available in varying degrees of sweetness -- dry, medium-sweet, and late harvest. Because of the grape’s pinkish (sometimes yellow) pigment, Gewürztraminer wines are some of the more deeply colored of the whites, many have gold or peach tones. The distinctive color and aroma of these wines make them easily recognizable by those familiar with this varietal wine.
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Chardonnay:
Chardonnay is by far the most widely planted grape crop in California and dominates California’s cooler, coastal, quality wine regions. The natural varietal ‘taste and smell’ of Chardonnay is surprisingly unfamiliar to many wine drinkers, as its true character is often guised with dominating winemaking signatures. Chardonnay’s rather subdued primary fruit characteristics lean toward the crisp fruitiness of apples, pears and lemon, but the variety’s full body is capable of supporting a host of complementary characteristics, such as oak, butter and vanilla. Regardless of what is the appropriate style for Chardonnay, the varietal continues to dominate vineyard plantings in every corner of the world. Close attention to clonal selection has made this broad geographic and climactic range of Chardonnay viable in thoughtful viticultural hands.
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