Zind-Humbrecht Gewurztraminer 2015
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Enthusiast
Wine -
Parker
Robert
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
Pair with Foie Gras, or white meat with cream-based sauce.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
The nose hints at richly golden fruit: ripe peach and glowing mirabelle. A floral tone of honeysuckle hovers. The palate comes in with clean, earthy and lemon-concentrated force, leaving the palate tingling with lemon zest and pith. The finish is just about dry but utterly clean-cut. All of this is more about texture than aroma.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The intensely colored 2015 Alsace Gewurztraminer Turckheim displays a beautifully clear, precise and aromatic, also pure and mineral bouquet with spicy flavors intertwined with ripe orange aromas. Round, ripe and highly elegant on the palate, this is a full-bodied, silky textured, intense and seductive Gewurz with a firm but very fine tannin structure and remarkable complexity in the long, perfectly balanced finish. Picked in different vineyards around Turckheim on September 21st and 22nd, this a picture-book Alsace Gewurztraminer was bottled with just 2.3 grams of residual sugar and 13.9% alcohol. The total acidity is just 3.6 grams per liter (pH of 3.8), but this doesn't matter. "We shouldn't forget that Gewurztraminer is a red wine with a white color," says Olivier Humbrecht, arguing that the grape's phenols are as high as in Pinot Noir. "We have to speak about the quality of the tannins when it comes to Gewurztraminer, instead of acidity."
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Certified Organic and Biodynamic.
Gewürztraminer, an expressive and aromatically distinctive white grape variety, is considered a noble variety in the Alsace region of France, and produces wonderful wines in the mountainous Alto Adige region of NE Italy. Generally this grape grows well in cooler regions and its natural intensity makes it a great ally for flavorful cuisine such as Indian, Middle Eastern or Moroccan. Somm Secret—Because of a charming perfume and tendency towards slight sweetness, Gewürztraminer makes for an excellent gateway wine for those who love sweet wines but want to venture into the realm of drier whites.
With its fairytale aesthetic, Germanic influence and strong emphasis on white wines, Alsace is one of France’s most unique viticultural regions. This hotly contested stretch of land running north to south on France’s northeastern border has spent much of its existence as German territory. Nestled in the rain shadow of the Vosges mountains, it is one of the driest regions of France but enjoys a long and cool growing season. Autumn humidity facilitates the development of “noble rot” for the production of late-picked sweet wines, Vendange Tardive and Sélection de Grains Nobles.
The best wines of Alsace can be described as aromatic and honeyed, even when completely dry. The region’s “noble” varieties, the only ones permitted within Alsace’s 51 Grands Crus vineyards, are Riesling, Gewurztraminer, Muscat, and Pinot Gris.
Riesling is Alsace’s main specialty. In its youth, Alsace Riesling is dry, fresh and floral, but develops complex mineral and flint character with age. Gewurztraminer is known for its signature spice and lychee aromatics, and is often utilized for late harvest wines. Pinot Gris is prized for its combination of crisp acidity and savory spice as well as ripe stone fruit flavors. Muscat, vinified dry, tastes of ripe green grapes and fresh rose petal.
Other varieties grown here include Pinot Blanc, Auxerrois, Chasselas, Sylvaner and Pinot Noir—the only red grape permitted in Alsace and mainly used for sparkling rosé known as Crémant d’Alsace. Most Alsace wines are single-varietal bottlings and unlike other French regions, are also labeled with the variety name.