Gewurztraminer de France
Wines color
Taste profile
Sweetness
Body
Acidity
Tannins
Alcohol
Table of contents
Encyclopedia
Origin
Gewurztraminer (which literally means “spicy Traminer”) is the pink-colored mutation of the Savagnin Blanc variety, which is found in the mountainous areas of the Franche-Comté region in central eastern France. Savagnin comes from a family of varieties that includes Traminer, which arrived in France during the German Palatinate in the 16th century. It originates from the Italian Tyrol, in the province of Alto Adige, and more specifically the village of Termeno (Tramin). The spiciest form of Traminer was given the name “Gewurztraminer”.
Aromas
Gewurztraminer is an exceptional grape variety thanks to its power and aromatic range. In addition to its varietal aromas of rosewood and litchi, with musky notes, it often features notes of gingerbread and citrus zest, combined with a strong exoticism – mango and passion fruit, for example. Other aromas expressed in this very noble variety are licorice, smokiness, honey and dried apricot.
Wines profile
Gewurztraminer has good potential for accumulating sugar and, in good terroirs, gives high quality dry wines that are moderately acid, strong, rich and relatively smooth, marked by a very full-bodied mouthfeel. They are flavorful with a long finish. Some exposures lend the grapes to over-ripening, with or without noble rot. These wines are thus velvety or sweet, can be kept for many years, and are impressively complex.
Cultivation areas
Gewurztraminer is primarily grown near the Vosges mountains in northeastern France and on the banks of the Moselle. More recently, the variety has been introduced into the area around Montpellier and Narbonne, but it is quite rare.
Precocity
This relatively early variety is sensitive to springtime frosts, but is resistant to winter freezes. It blooms at the same time as Chasselas, the benchmark grape variety, and in terms of ripeness is a Period I variety; it fully ripens a week and a half after Chasselas.
Vigor
Highly vigorous, Gewurztraminer is nonetheless not highly productive. It is susceptible to shot berries when flowering takes place in cold, rainy periods.
Soils
Gewurztraminer is very demanding in terms of the soil it is grown in. It prefers marl soils, i.e. areas of rather soft sedimentary limestone. It also grows well in deep soils, with a large proportion of clay.
Climat
Its Alpine, continental origins make this grape variety perfect for cold climates that are well exposed and watered little. In such conditions, with light summer and autumn rains, it can ripen for a long time. For this reason, it is less suited to hot regions, which speed up its ripening and give less elegant, less rich, less delicate wines.
Susceptibility to diseases and pests
Gewurztraminer is not sensitive to Oidium, grape berry moths and gray mold.
Use
Gewurztraminer is used only to produce wine.
Descriptive elements
Gewurztraminer's clusters and berries are small. Its berries are rounded and pink, sometimes purplish, when ripe. The tips of young shoots have many flat-lying hairs and the adult leaves are small with 3 lobes, and a petiolar sinus that is slightly open or with overlapping lobes. This variety has lobes with teeth that are short to medium-length in proportion to their width at the base, and their sides are convex. There is slight to moderate reddish anthocyanic pigmentation of the veins in the leaf blade. The leaf blade is bubbled, slightly waffled, jagged or revolute at the edges. The underside has a moderately dense coat of flat-lying hairs.
Clonal selection in France
The eight approved Gewurztraminer clones (specifically named Gewurztraminer Rs) are numbers 47, 48, 643, 1075, 1076, 1077, 1078 and 1079. Nearly 140 clones were planted at a conservatory in Alsace in 1998.
