Gewurztraminer: the butterfly alights

Once upon a time, many centuries ago, there was a white wine grape growing in northern France and southern Germany called traminer. Now, while traminer produced some beautiful offspring, including pinot noir and sauvignon blanc, its white wine was just a little plain.

Then something magical happened, probably in southern Germany – it mutated. Like a beautiful butterfly emerging from a chrysalis, this new, pink-berried clone of traminer demanded attention, with a lifted aroma of lychee and rosewater. The Germans called it gewurztraminer, meaning spicy traminer. Its wines were golden, rich and full bodied, with a heady aroma.

Gewurztraminer more or less took over from the original traminer and became widely planted in many countries, though to this day the best examples of the variety are found close to its home in Germany, Austria and northern France. These are all cold places and that suits the variety down to the ground.

Alsace in France has made a real name for itself with gewurztraminer with a range of styles from off-dry to dry and full-bodied. Until recently, the variety was usually made as a pure varietal, but with some overdue changes in French wine law there are now some exciting blends of gewurztraminer with pinot gris and riesling being produced in the region.

When we bought Colmar Estate in 2013 there was no gewurztraminer in the vineyard, so the first thing we did was graft over an old sauv blanc patch. We just knew gewurz would work on our cool site. The first meagre crop in 2015 was blended with some riesling and pinot gris to make an off-dry style that we cheekily called Le Moche. It was an instant hit at the cellar door and found its way onto some fancy restaurant wine lists. So we have made Le Moche ever since.

2016 was a more fruitful year so we made a 100 per cent gewurztraminer. Bang! Gold medal at the Orange Wine Show. We were onto something.

Fast forward to 2024. We were keen to break new ground and set about making a dry, barrel-aged field blend to partner Le Moche, with gewurztraminer in the driving seat. The vintage produced beautifully ripe gewurz and our task became to find the right mix with riesling and pinot gris to achieve a beautifully balance wine. In the end it was 60:20:20 and the wine was labelled La Dame.

The 2024 La Dame is due for release in the spring, though we are already showing it in the cellar door to gewurztraminer fans on the hunt. Try it for yourself here.