Tasting - Crane Lake Gewurtztraminer

Name: Crane Lake

Variety: Gewurtztraminer

Region: Orange County, California

Country: United States

Year: 2013

Price: $5.95

Shop/wine critic/winery review: "Slightly high-toned notions of rose petal mingle with lemon on nose and palate of this lightly sweet, richly textured yet balanced gewurtraminer. This is not as heady as you may expect and will be a treat with spicy Asian dishes. Lychee and rose petal make another very fetching appearance on the finish." Vintage Cellar

My Review: I apologize in advance that this review may be longer than my usual short reviews. I was interested in this wine when coming to the tasting in particular because I had remembered reading about it in Kevin Zraly's Windows on the World Complete Wine Course textbook and thinking it sounded interesting. It was supposed to be a very different kind of wine with an emphasis on being spicy with some people really loving this unique wine and other not as much. I wondered what category I would fall under, and of course the bottle and color of the wine weren't really indicating anything as far as my preference so far. "You're going to love this!" one of my friends, Grace, said as she turned to my other friend Michaela. Now, reader, Michaela is really working her way into liking wine and she's doing a pretty great job at it, I'd say, coming from hating all of it to having a few here and there she really enjoys. So Grace was either hinting at the fact that this wine was something spectacular or that is tasted like something Michaela actually does love: beer. Want to guess which one it was? (Answer: The latter.) I grimaced because, to be honest, I'm not a huge beer fan. I hate to be "that girl" who loves wine and hates beer, but I just can't stand the intense flavor of hops (which is why I'm classy enough to drink a nice wine, but also appreciate cheap American beer for what it is, because it's practically carbonated water-but I digress...). I grimaced, swirled, and stuck my nose into the glass. There is was. Beer smell. Like those nice beers you find at craft beer fairs, the ones that make my stomach turn inside out a little bit. Not to mention the floral bits. And the bits that smell like a grandma's old couch that hasn't been sat on in 10 years. And that was just the smell. I really wanted to just set it down and stop there, but as I have learned over the past few weeks, you can't always judge how the wine tastes by how it smells, no matter how many people tell you otherwise: the smell might help with tasting as a sense, but that does not mean that the flavors will match the smell. If there's one thing I've learned outside the books, it's that. So I picked up the glass and tasted it. A very, very sweet taste hit my tongue and for about 2 seconds I thought I might like it. Then I realized there was no acidity at all and that sweet taste was almost like rotting fruit (maybe that's what that lychee stuff is). The sweet taste was quickly accompanied by a terrible spicy and hoppy taste. It was also light. So to me, an accurate description on the taste of this wine would be "a very flat and spicy hoppy beer." Ew. Now it's time for me to admit it, and it took me a while, but I can finally say it: I found a wine that I hate. It's trying too hard to be beer. Not quite an IPA, but pretty close, and also no carbonation to mask the nasty.

By the way, Michaela didn't like it and Grace did, so I find that interesting. Will not purchase. Will not try again. Food can't even help this. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. I think I've made myself pretty clear.

This wine was tasted at the Vintage Cellar in Blacksburg, Virginia without food.