TN: Domaine Schlumberger 2010 Gewurztraminer Kessler

Berserkers,

Fall is upon us and it’s a perfect time to start hitting up other wine types in my collection, starting with my favorite white wine style, Alsace. I haven’t had a Gewurztraminer in a while so I opened up the current oldest bottle in my collection:

DOMAINE SCHLUMBERGER 2010 GEWURZTRAMINER KESSLER

SUMMARY: Extremely floral and sweet Gewurztraminer with superb texture and deep flavor. Needs to be paired with rich savory foods to offset the sweetness, though.

The wine is a clean and fresh pale straw gold in the glass. You’d never guess it was bottled 11 years ago by looking at it. On the nose, all lychees and ginger with a slight touch of petrol. The nose is almost as smooth as the texture. Impressive. On the palate, a superb mouthfeel and texture. Liquid glycerine. Sweet ginger and flowers followed by lychees and surprisingly strong vanilla and hot ginger spice accents on the finish. There is no getting around that this is very sweet for a table wine. It’s 50 g/L of residual sugar and that’s enough to hit dessert wine classification. This absolutely needs to be paired with rich savory food that won’t be overwhelmed by the wine. This paired wonderfully with a homemade beef stew.

Nice notes. Thank you. I’m a Alsace Gewurtz fan. I would never think to pair with beef stew, I will have to give that a try!

Thanks, Brian. I would not have thought of it normally, either, but I happened to watch a YouTube video recently on Alsace which featured a restaurant serving Choucroute Garnie paired with a lot of Alsacian wines. The light bulb went off in my head and I realized that any rich savory dish with a similar kind of texture and components would also be a great match. Hence the beef stew. I’d also argue my homemade beef stew was also quite a lot healthier than Choucroute Garnie, so bonus there.