2010 South Wedge Winery Traminette Review

Its been quite a while since I've posted about our 2010 Traminette. There are a few reasons for that. Lack of time and laziness played a part, but a big part of it was also due to me avoiding a review of the wine. I tasted it during each stage of production from raw juice to a few weeks after bottling, and I wasn't too impressed with the last tasting I did. I'm hoping that letting it rest for a few months improved it.

Here is what it looks like. Good color. The aroma has a nice fruity and floral scent(kind of like jasmine), but there is also a bit of a chemical scent. Not overwhelming, but its there.

The first flavor is definately fruity and floral again. Apricot and canned peaches, I would say. Also a bit of honey. I think the flavor of the grape comes through pretty well. A larger sip or several sips in succession produces somewhat of a bitter chemically flavor. Its got a moderate amount of sugar, and that is balanced nicely by the moderate acidity.

Overall, I'd have to give this a 5 out of 10. I don't think its particularly good, but I'd buy it if it was cheap...like under $8.

Knowing what I do about the background of this wine, I have a couple theories as to why it didn't turn out quite as well as I would have liked. As for the chemical flavor, I suspect that might be caused by potasium metabisulphite(heretofore called sulfite). That is the main chemical that is used to prevent bacterial contamination. Its also the stuff that people talk about in cheap wine that gives some people headaches. The vineyard that I bought the wine from sells the grape juice with an initial dose of the sulfite to kill of bacteria that were hanging out on the grapes. The instructions I followed this time said to add a dose of sulfite after each major step in the process, so I added it as directed after primary fermentation and then again after secondary fermentation, and lastly between cold stabilization and bottling. That means it got dosed 4 times. Afterwards, I realized that in the past, I've only dosed the sulfite once before bottling (in addition to the initial sulfite that the vineyard put in). I've read that if the wine has too much sulfite in it, you can taste a chemically flavor.

The other problem that this wine has is the inherent flavor in the grape. The grape's flavor is not really bad, but its not really good, either. It almost tastes more like mead than wine. Traminette is a hybrid of Gewurtztraminer and a more cold-hardy grape that produces more heavily in the finger lakes region. I chose this juice for two reasons. One is that I really like Gewurtraminers, and especially Gewurtraminers from the finger lakes. The other reason was that the Traminette was cheap. Gewurtraminer juice is over $20 per gallon, while the Traminette was $10 per gallon. Unfortunately, you don't have a chance to taste the juices before you buy them, you have to reserve the juice ahead of time. A limo driver for a wine tour I was on once told me that the more expensive juice is worth the money because you can't make good wine without good juice. While I wasn't really confident enough in my winemaking skills to spend $120 on 6 gallons of juice vs. the $60 for the Traminette, I think the next time I make wine, I'll go for the good juice....and also not put as much sulphite in it.