I thought an Alsace wine would go nicely with a baked ham, but I was wrong (for the second time tonight). The 2001 Domaine Zind-Humbrecht "Herrenweg de Turckheim" Gewurtztraminer is a great wine, but not a match for a baked ham.
Beautiful golden amber in colour, this wine had a very aromatic and beautiful nose. Scents of lemon, white flower, sweet apricot, brioche and cloves - almost Sauternes-like. On the palate it was sweet, rich, soft and well balanced - perhaps even some licorice flavours?
Overall, this was a terrific wine, but a terrible match for our dinner. It is too bad, because it was such a good wine - try it as an after dinner dessert, or even better a before dinner apertif?
Score: 16.5/20
Cost: C$36
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2 comments:
I had this wine a couple of times and had a .500 batting average with it. I like ZH wines a lot and they're very big yet elegant for their size. I think you should have tried it with oriental food, though it's probably not sweet enough to complement spicy food. Maybe dim-sum would suit it.
You should note that ZH doesn't aim for consistent sweetness in their wines, not even for the same wine across different vintages. However, the front label always sports a sweetness index that describes the perceived sweetness of the wine so you can use it as an aid for food matches. I think this wine had an index of 1, so it's not bone dry but somewhat off-dry.
Interesting. In my mind this was not a "1", but we have had that discussion before! I have not tasted a broad number of ZH wines, so I did not know that the sweetness varies. Your dim sum comment seems to make a lot of sense for this wine. Generally speaking, I find German and Alsace wines are wonderful, but I am always having trouble pairing these successfully.
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