Gewürztraminer

With this variety, complete, unshackled physiological ripeness is a must. This ripeness and ensuing high sugar, coupled with certain regions’ reliance on natural fermentation, means that the wines often do not ferment to dry. In Italy’s Alto Adige region, however, high altitudes mean greater diurnal shifts. The result is grapes with higher acidity levels and less ripe musts that are generally fermented using cultured yeasts, producing  zesty, structured Gewurztraminers with bright, fresh fruit, and an energy generally associated with a cool climate. In Alsace, by contrast, look for a more classic profile of very ripe fruit, and concentrated floral aromas, and expect the wines to be sweet. If Gewurz is too dry in Alsace, Germany or Austria, it’s often because the fruit was insufficiently ripe, leading to a muted expression. Moreover, if being fully ripe means that it doesn’t ferment to dry, that’s OK. In California, we have effectively embraced both philosophies and, when done well, our finest interpretations effectively bridge the two styles, with the best being as expressive as Alsace, yet as dry as many Italian versions.

Working The Land

Does soil influence the flavor of the final wine?

Traditionalists answer unequivocally “Yes!” Soil is a key element of terroir, the natural environment in which vines grow, combined with climate (temperature, rainfall), topography (altitude, drainage, slope, aspect) and sunlight.

A more unorthodox view holds that the influence of soil on what you taste in the glass is a myth. Maynard Amerine and Ann Noble, two famous names at UC Davis, California’s premier wine school and research facility, conducted a study on the topic. Though the study is based on Chardonnay grapes, they concluded that the following holds true for all wine grapes: “no outstanding sensory differences were observed in wines produced from different soil type locations.” The key word is “sensory” (sight, smell, taste). They are not claiming that soil doesn’t affect vine behavior (yield, growth cycle, etc.). 

According to Jancis Robinson MW in Wine Grapes, pink-berried, aromatic Gewurztraminer is one of “the most significant clonal mutations” of Savagnin and is chronologically the third mutation after Savagnin Blanc and Savagnin Rosé. It is also the only aromatic mutation, hence the moniker Traminer Aromatico in Italian. That is at once accurate and dizzying and perhaps best explained as follows: the story starts with the ancient Traminer variety, a green-skinned grape that takes its name from the village of Tramin (Termeno) in Alto Adige/South Tyrol, a German-speaking area in northern Italy. That we all agree on. The famous late ampelographer Pierre Galet thought that Traminer was identical to the green-skinned Savagnin Blanc responsible for Vin Jaune in the Jura. More recently, it has been suggested that Savagnin Blanc acquired slight differences in its leaf shape and geraniol content as it traveled to the other end of the Alps. 

At some point, either Traminer or Savagnin Blanc mutated into a form with pink-skinned berries called Red Traminer or Savagnin Rosé. Galet believed that a musqué (muscat-like) mutation in Red Traminer/Savagnin Rosé led to an extra-aromatic Gewurztraminer, although in Germany these names are all regarded as synonymous. Given that German Gewürztraminers can be much less aromatic than their counterparts just over the border in Alsace, some of the German vines may well be misidentified as Savagnin Rosé. The Baden vineyard of Durbach claims its own type of Red Traminer, called Durbacher Clevner (not to be confused with "Klevner", an Austrian synonym for Pinot Blanc). The story goes that in 1780, Karl Friedrich, Grand Duke of Baden, brought vines from around Chiavenna in northern Italy (known in German as “Cleven”), near the border with the German-speaking part of Switzerland.

The Klevener de Heiligenstein or Heiligensteiner Klevener found around Heiligenstein in Alsace may represent an outpost of the Durbach vines. These are often described as a less aromatic form of Gewurztraminer, which sounds just like the Red Traminer.  And there you have it … hopefully with more clarity!

A sizable number of clones in California are registered with the UC Davis FPS. The oldest clones (01 and 02) arrived sometime before 1956 from Bergheim in Alsace, along with clone number 456 from ENTAV-INRA® in France, and now known as clone 47. A further 13 clones are accessible to California wineries today.