An Alsace-style bottle with an aesthetically pleasing AND informative label (info not shown, but trust me, it's there...)

Appellation: Finger Lakes
Grape: Gewürztraminer
ABV:13.6%
RS: 0.5%
Price Point: $18
Closure: Natural cork

Technical Notes: Tons of info, courtesy of the website. Bravo to Sheldrake for transparency and geek info! TA: 6.3 g/L, pH: 3.53. Hand harvested at 23.2 Brix, 6.7 g/L Ta, 3.7 pH. “The fruit was destemmed, cold-soaked for three [days]. The cold settled juices were racked to fermentation tanks two days later. All lots were fermented using Epernay II yeast at 60-63 F with tartaric acid additions for pH control. The free run lot fermented for 39 days and was stopped at 0.5% residual sugar; the press fraction fermented for 70 days to 0.5% residual sugar. The free run and press fraction lots were combined to become the varietal Gewurztraminer.”

Hedonic Notes: Rosey on the nose with peach and fleshy fruit. On the palate, bold and concentrated. Excellent balance of flowery and firm fruity aromas (something I definitely look for in Gewürztraminer. Often one finds a bunch of flowers transforming an ordinary bottle of wine into grandma’s perfume collection. Not so in this case.) This wine is packed with flavor and a great example of a grape that has been living in the shadow of Riesling in this region.

Rating: 4 out of 5 corks . Great stuff, one of my favorite wines of 2009.

Science!
One of the defining aroma characteristics of Gewürztraminer wines is the characteristic rose/lychee aroma. In fact, in some blind tastings, people will say “lychee” if they think a wine is Gewürztraminer, whether they have actually seen or eaten a lychee or not. I have had lychee juice (you can get it at the grocery store, probably in the Asian section) and it’s a pretty good descriptor for Gewürztraminer.

Lychee fruit, a member of the soapberry (...?) family

The chemical compound responsible for this lychee aroma is cis-rose oxide, so called because it is also found in rose oil. A study from 1999, done at the Cornell Extension in Geneva, showed that lychee fruit and Gewürztraminer share many aroma compounds in common, including cis-rose oxide (Ong and Acree, “Similarities in the Aroma Chemistry of Gewürztraminer Variety Wines and Lychee (Litchi chinesis Sonn.) Fruit“, J. Ag. Food Chem., 1999).

cis-rose oxide

For the most part, perception of cis-rose oxide is unique to wines with Muscat/Gewürztraminer parentage. It’s considered a primary aroma, meaning it is found in the grapes themselves and not strictly a product of fermentation. However, during fermentation, yeast can also hydrolyze some terpene precursors to create more of the compound, so fermentation definitely contributes to the aroma. (Koslitz et al., “Stereoselective Formation of the Varietal Aroma Compound Rose Oxide during Alcoholic Fermentation“, J. Ag. Food Chem, 2008.)

BONUS: I tasted this wine live with Dave from Eating Ithaca during our interview. Hear some thoughts about Gewürztraminer, Sheldrake, and more around 1:09:00 (click to listen).

                          

Forgot to take a picture of the bottle, so here is a small one.

Appellation: Finger Lakes
Varieties: 55% Riesling 45% gewürztraminer
ABV: 12.8%
RS: 1.75%
Price Point: $10
Notes:
Looks: Lemony-green
Nose: Intense nose of flowers, peach, and lychee (What’s a lychee, anyway? I can only find them in cans, but they’re pretty good! Check the Asian section of the local market)
Palate: Pear coming through on the palate, and some passion fruit*. Good amount of sweetness and balanced acidity. A tad short on the finish, but all in all a nice wine. For under $10, I’d definitely get it again.
Rating: for outstanding {QPR}.

Winemaker Paul Brock is new at Lamoreaux Landing, and I understand that this is one of his first wines there. He’s also trained as a chemical engineer, so he’s got that going for him. Many estate whites in the Finger Lakes are made with Cayuga White, or other hybrids or native grapes. While there’s nothing necessarily wrong with these, it’s refreshing to see an estate white made with the aromatic white varieties that the Finger Lakes is known for. So far, it seems he’s doing a great job out at Lamoreaux. See where a little science can get you?

*Science!

In the last science section, we talked about volatile thiols and how enzymes in saliva can free them up. One example of a volatile thiol is 3-mercaptohexanol. It smells like passion fruit, and can be quite nice. At high concentrations, though, it starts to smell a little bit sweaty. When I first smelled a sample that had been spiked with this chemical, I though I had forgotten to put on deodorant. Nope, it was the wine. At least that time it was…

3-mercaptohexanol. Fruity and sweaty. Kind of like Richard Simmons.

This is a good example of something that can be pleasurable at low concentrations, but when the concentration gets too high can be considered a fault. Some people feel this way about the characteristic aromas of {brettanomyces}. But that’s a story for another post.