J.W. Morris Gewurztraminer – 2007
$2.99 @ Trader Joe’s
Each wine region has their own tolerance for flaws. In Italy, your average wine drinker will prefer “hotter” wines. (Hot = detectable alcohol on your tongue and especially in your nose and the back of your throat.) In France, you’ll find wines that have been invaded by a wild yeast called bretanomyces. It’s pervasive and hard to get rid of, so older wineries are more susceptible. France has some of the oldest wineries in the world, so most of them have a touch of bret. In small doses, it can add complex flavors of leather, smoke, tobacco and earth. In large doses, it… it’s hard to explain. Sterile… reminiscent of Band-Aids, ointment or dentist offices. Yeah… that’s bret.
In the United States, the flaw we forgive is sweetness. I’m guilty. I love a sweet wine.
This is a sweet wine. The label says “dry”, which lets you know that wine-makers have a sense of humor and sarcasm is not beyond them. It’s not terribly complex, but it’s not exactly boring. Stick your nose in the glass and you’ll get peaches, plums and mangoes with a perfume of some vague, unidentifiable flowers. Oh, I’m sure they’re identifiable to someone who knows flowers. Freesia? Sure. Why not? Freesia. There’s lime-like citrus in there but not enough to make it terribly crisp. Gewurztraminers can range from bone-dry to tooth-rotting sweet, but really dry ones are hard to find in any store I frequent. Yeah, it’s sweet. That’s the first impression you’ll get from the flavor, and it’s such a one-note wine, it’s a little hard to find the subtleties beyond it. A wine this sweet, one might expect it to have a syrup texture, but it’s very light. It’s not as crisp as I’d prefer, so only slightly refreshing, but chilling it helps with that. If you don’t like sweet wines, you probably don’t dig Gewurztraminer, but this is sweet even considering it’s meant to be a desert wine. It’s not “off-dry”. It’s freakin’ fruit-juice sweet.
It leaves me wondering two things:
Why are kids not drinking this stuff by the caseload at high school parties instead of Mike’s Hard Lemonade, MD 20-20 and Razzmatazz?
Why, with our sweet palettes, do Americans not LOVE Gewurztraminer? I think it’s the name. Something you can’t pronounce is off-putting. Someone with the marketing genius of Robert Mondavi really needs to come up with a less daunting name for this wine. I suggest “Liberty Cabbage Juice”.
I’d definitely serve this well below cellar temperature. The colder, the better with this wine. Now that I think about it, it’s so cheap, you could throw a few ice cubes in the glass without feeling like a total rube. I’d never do it in snobby company, but the ice cubes are making such a lovely sound in the big, crystal glass as I swirl it.
I don’t love this wine, but I sure like it. It’s good for what it is: a sweet wine that you can buy with a $5 bill and get change back. It’s as good as Gewurztraminer from Covey Run or Bonny Doon at under half the price. Better than Fetzer and still cheaper. Part of the fun of wine tasting is enjoying how the flavors develop as the wine oxidizes, but this wine doesn’t develop much from swirling and breathing. That has it’s advantages though. If you’re impatient like me, you can pop the cork and enjoy it right away without feeling like you’re missing out on the big show. Speaking of waiting, you’ll be glad to know that this is not a wine for aging. Drink it on the way home from Trader Joe’s if you want.
If you like sweet wine, you’ll probably like this. In fact, if you find that you’ve tried a lot of wines and thought they were bitter, gross and unappealing, this might be the bottle that makes you a wine lover. Give it a shot, and if you don’t like it, hey, I’ll help you finish it.
When you ask for it, it’s pronounced Guh-vurts-tra-meen-ur, but since no one should be ashamed of their accent, feel free to pronounce it like it’s spelled. Guh-wurz-tra-meen-ur… just as good.
Rundown:
Smells like: Orange, fleshy fruit and flowers.
Tastes like: Sweet, slightly tangy fruits. Not complex, but not undrinkable.
Pros: A cheap, sweet wine for cheap, sweet wine lovers. Doesn’t need to breathe.
Cons: A little boring.
Pairing: (Fine to drink it on its own.)
Drink it with: Sweet sauces. Batter-fried things. Chinese or Indian take-out. Sea food. Pretty much any cheese. Fruit or light deserts.
Don’t drink it with: Really sweet deserts like cake. Really, really spicy foods. (Makes spicy foods hotter. Amplifies vindaloo by a factor of $&#*!)
Final Verdict: Not spectacular, but forgivable based on the price. Try some.