Gewurtzraminer's Telltale

Go get yourself some wine grapes and wine. For this experiment, I am going to suggest white wines and white wine grapes. And, I want the grapes to match up with the wines. In other words, do not bring me a bottle of Chenin Blanc, but no Chenin Blanc grape. This is an experiment, so we need to have some level of rules. Speaking of rules, I am going to set one more. One of your grapea and therefore bottles of  wine has to be Gewurtzraminer.

No, I don't know where you are finding all these grapes. Frankly, I've never seen Gewurtzraminer grapes at my local Publix or Kroger. Costco doesn't carry them, nor does Sam's. And, when I lived up north, I couldn't get them at Pathmark or Stop n Shop or A&P. I checked in the Philadelphia area and Wegman's doesn't have them and out west, Safeway doesn't either, but I am sure they exist and I am sure you can find them somewhere. Trust me.

You can't find them? This blog is all a dream anyway. 

But, you can get the wines. And, since you are going to have multiple bottles open, you might want to have multiple COVID-negative friends available to help you drink from these bottles you'll be opening.

However, before we start opening, I'm going to send you to a specialty market. Pick yourself up some fresh lychee as well as some canned lychee. You're not familiar with lychee? It's a fruit indigenous to southeastern China. You can also find a lot in India. 

And, Danger Will Robinson! Do not eat the outer skin or shell of the lychee. Repeat, do not eat the outer covering. It has been found to cause encephalopathy, particularly in otherwise malnourished people. But, once you get past that outer skin or shell, it's the flesh inside that is the delicacy.

So, what does all this have to do with grapes and wine? We're getting there.

Now, I want you to make sure your nose is clear. Get that sniffer ready. 

In succession, smell the fresh lychee, the canned lychee, and one of the white grapes. Repaat with each of the other grapes. Then, in succession smell the fresh lychee, the canned lychee, and each white wine, separately.

Was there one sniffing sequence where all three smelled almost identical to each other? And, was the closest resemblance to your nose, perhaps not even in the two lychee samples, but in the canned lychee and the Gewurtzraminer wine? What's going on here?

If you subject each of the three to gas chromatograhy, you will find that the single largest aromatic concentration in each one is something called cis-rose oxide. And, you'll find that there are nearly a dozen other aromatic compounds common to each of the three in fairly meaningful quantities. One of the other aromatics is geraniol (yes, you'll also find geraniol in geraniums). And, strangely you find neither of these in huge quantities in the Gewurtzraminer grapes. So, something, and I don't know what must happen during fermentation.

But, now you can impress your friends. Have a blind tasting of white wines. And, voila, when you are presented with a wine that screams lychee, you will take a taste and amaze your friends when you proclaim Gewurtzraminer!

And as a footnote, yes, lychee fruit, but not the skin/shell, does go really well with southeast Asian food. Yes, it's a great pairing.