The Gewurtz sting

by Chris Losh

A few years ago, I took my daughter to one of these petting zoo places in Devon. (Look, we were on holiday and it was raining, ok? Besides, it wasn’t all bad. We got to stroke a wallaby...) Anyway, while we were there, the 'bug expert' gave a rather lugubrious talk, at the end of which he said he would 'reveal the point of a wasp'.

I waited with bated breath. After all, from where I’m sitting, wasps are just dole-ite bees with an attitude problem. Unless you’re a manufacturer of Germolene, they contribute nothing to society but misery, anarchy and disruption. They’re like three generations of benefit cheats who burn cars in the front lawn and terrorise the old blind lady next door with their Alsatians. More of Alsatians later...

The talk went on through snails, bugs and various creatures that live up to their neck in dung (insert joke about your general manager here...) until the end when Mr Lugubrious said, 'Ah yes. The point of a wasp is...'

(cue drum roll, craning of necks and intakes of breath)

'The point of a wasp is ... its sting...' 

(Cue discordant parping sounds and disgruntled sighing.)

The joke itself was worthy of a straight red card, but it did at least confirm what I’d thought: you could remove wasps from the earth and the planet would, indeed, be a better place, and to hell with Ray Bradbury’s 'stand on a butterfly and you alter history forever' contention that tiny events have big repercussions down the line.

Now, for me, the wine equivalent of the wasp is Gewurztraminer.

Years ago, I quite liked it. When I first started out 'doing' wine, it was something I could pick out in a blind tasting; it had tonnes of flavour and it was undeniably different.

But I don’t think that’s enough any more. I don’t, fortunately, come across it very often. But when I do, I’m annoyed by its tartiness; the OTT exoticism of its perfume; the lack of structure; the gloopiness on the palate; the class-free dearth of acidity.

It’s a bottle blonde in a low-cut top, with big hooped earrings and a vacant expression.

It’s like the first girlfriend who you grew out of within two weeks, but who still irritates you instantly when you see her again, however much you tell yourself that you’re going to really make an effort.

It’s like Jordan in a bottle. And the wine irritates me for the same reason she does: because, frankly, I can’t think of any occasion on which I wouldn’t rather be experiencing something else.

I know the Alsatians like to tell us it goes well with foie gras, but for me there are other wines that do that job just as well or better; I’ve never been convinced by the ‘great with Chinese food’ argument either. And as for drinking it on its own – it’s just all too much.

You know when you walk down the street and you walk into one of those suffocating clouds of cheap perfume left behind by some nasally challenged old bat? Drinking Gewurz is like that for me. I can do the odd sip of it, but drink a whole glass? I need air, man... As for a bottle, forget it...

I’m sure there will be (probably French) sommeliers shrugging their shoulders and tutting angrily at my lack of appreciation of one of the world’s great grapes. But ask yourself this: when was the last time you sold a bottle of it? And perhaps more to the point, when was the last time you actually drank a bottle voluntarily at home?

I had a bottle of Alsace Grand Cru Gewurz in my cellar for five years, brought it out to sip, had enough after one mouthful, cooked with some of it and poured the rest down the sink.

It was like drinking the juice out of a tin of lychees that had been seasoned with old ladies’ bath salts.

Frankly, I’d rather pat a wallaby...

1 comment

Mark D. 13-09-2010

is petting a wallaby a euphemism??? Blue cheese and gewurtz are a match made in heaven. I agree that a fair proportion of gewurztraminer can err on the flabby side. But when it's right it's very right. It's the smae with Blondes. There are the Sam foxs' and there are the Faye Dunaways.

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