Gewürztraminer, often written Gewurztraminer is the aromatic variant of the pink-skinned savagnin, shown by dna profiling to be identical to traminer, and is responsible for some of the most distinctively perfumed, full-bodied white wines of all. Gewürztraminer may not be easy to spell, even for wine merchants, but is blissfully easy to recognize—indeed many wine drinkers find it is the first, possibly only, grape variety they are able to recognize from the wine’s heady aroma alone. Deeply coloured, opulently aromatic, and broader than almost any other white wine, Gewürztraminer’s faults are only in having too much of everything. It is easy to tire of its weight and its exotic flavour of lychees and heavily scented roses, although alsace’s finest Gewürztraminers are extremely serious wines, with an occasional savoury note reminiscent of bacon fat in some of the most complex examples, capable of at least medium-term ageing.
