Gertie Gewurztraminer 2018

“Gertie” delivers a dry, yet juicy mouthful of lychee, mango, peach, and honeysuckle-lime notes with just the illusion of sweetness. A dry wine with a lovely harmonious balance of acidity and tannin , then a clean bright finish.

A beautifully aromatic dry white wine with just the illusion of sweetness and medium to low acidity making it a perfect food wine. Chilled, this wine serves well by itself as an aperitif and will pair with zesty-flavored fare like BBQ chicken wings and will certainly go well with Thai, Indian, Turkish, Morrocan, Mediterranean and Lebanese dishes using either chicken and fish. It is also the all-time-classic pairing for Thanksgiving turkey and all its customary fixings.

Its natural high sugar content means that in hot climates it can becomes overly sweet but picking early to retain the acidity, means that the varietal aromas do not develop and these aromas may be further diluted by over cropping in an attempt to overcome its historical low yields.

Gertie is not an easy grape to grow with a quality wine result in mind. It shares some characteristics of other tough customers like Pinot Noir and Viognier, both of which we have mastered by ignoring the traditional low yield issue and focusing on fruit quality.

Being one of the Noble Grape Varieties it deserves to be produced as a quality wine so we selected Russian River Valley to grow Gertie with sandy soil, warm and dry but never hot climate and attention to the exact moment to pick so the aromatics develop without the cloying sweetness often found in Gewurztraminer wines.