Gewurztraminer

Fiona and I suffered West Wing withdrawal bravely for three days, before I snapped and purchased the box set of the second series (£29.99 from Borders - and on ebay these are selling for £25, so I think I'll recoup most of this outlay). So last night and tonight we saw four episodes in all.

Back to wine. Now Gewurztraminer isn't a grape I have a great deal of affection for, but I'm drinking two rather different but brilliant expressions of this variety at the moment. Both are from the Alsace region, and are available from UK supermarket Morrisons. The first is the Preiss-Zimmer Gewurztraminer 2004, which is sealed with a saranex-lined screwcap (this allows a little more ox-trans than the more commonly encountered tin-lined cap). It's full flavoured, perfumed and has lots of the typical Gewurz lychee fruit. Good acidity offsets the richness nicely, and it's sort of dry. A really useful food wine (£6.99).

The second is the Cave de Turckheim Grand Cru Brand Gewurztraminer 2002, and it's brilliant, with lots of apricot, peach and lychee fruit. It's fat, viscous and quite sweet, but with good spice and acid providing balance. Certainly a sweet wine, but not a dessert wine. Well worth the £13.99 price ticket.

How do you use these wines? The dogma is that Gewurz works with spicy food. I think these would also be OK with anything rich and fatty. The latter wine, being richer and sweeter, would also do the classic foie gras combination quite well.