Checkin' out the spice at Navarro Vineyards

Wines & Vines, June, 1999 by Richard Paul Hinkle

When Ted Bennett and Deborah Cahn began planting Navarro Vineyards in 1973 in Anderson Valley, they founded it on the principle that Gewurztraminer would flourish in the fog-shaded, sun-dabbled slopes flanking the Navarro River. To this day, the "gee-whiz" wine accounts for fully 70% of production.

Last January, Ted and Deborah quietly sent out a package of six Gewurztraminers for tasting. That's right, a half dozen of the spicy stuff, ranging in a.c. from zero (that's right, NONE) to more than 15% and in residual sugar from less than 1/2% on up to a mighty 21.5%. (Funny, the Cluster Select actually has more residual sugar than the Grape Juice!) Every single one was scintillatingly titillating. They stuck sensual nerves all over the place, from their spice-driven fruit to their supple, succulent textures (particularly the Vendage Tardive, look out for that one, she's dangerous).

"When we opened our tasting room in 1980, we suspected that we might have a wee bit of a marketing problem when a customer wandered in and referred to our heart-throb wine as 'Gee-what's-her-name,'" they recount. "Well, our passion for this grape has survived, and this year we are in the unique position of being able to send you six different Gewurztraminers, all produced at Navarro in 1997. So here they are (drum roll), Navarro's Spice Girls. (Sorry, we get a little silly in Philo in January.)"

What Ted and Deborah are calling Ginger Spice is the wine we're all most familiar with, the Estate Bottled Gewurztraminer ($14). The '97 has that lovely hothouse intensity of violets, lilacs, rose petals and cinnamon spiciness, all wrapped up in a crisp, dry finish. Ted points to a grapefruit quality. "To me, it's rose petals and lychee in the finish, with a much fuller mid-palate than our Cuvee Traditional," says winemaker Jim Klein. "The '97 vintage, if you recall, came in fast and furious. We were forced to do 80% of our crush in a 14-day period!"

Baby Spice is the designation given to Navarro's Cuvee Traditional (Dry). "The cost of growing grapes here in Anderson Valley is high, and it's pushed our Estate Gewurz to $14 a bottle," explains Deborah. "But we still wanted to have one at a lower, more affordable price, so we're buying some fruit from Monterey's Arroyo Seco [Wente], which allows us to have two price points for our dry Gewurtzes. That, in turn, allows us to blend up for the serious Gewurztraminer consumers. As you can see, the estate is not meant for sipping. It's meant for food.

"You also have to remember that we had kept our Estate at $11 for a long time, and it wasn't reflecting our costs. We ferment in oak ovals, and Gewurztraminer is a notoriously low-yielding varietal to start with. The oak is important in giving our estate Gewurz the tone, the mouth feel."

Which is not to say that the California appellation Cuvee Traditional ($11) falls off significantly. It is blessed with nutmeg, sweet lemon, lilac and apple fruit, with a nice mineral underlay. "Citrus and lemon," says Klein.

"The Monterey fruit clearly has that forward citrus component. We also use a little of our estate press wine to boost the flavor and body."

The Cuvee Traditional was first made in 1996, something of a disastrous vintage: cold, late bloom, with instant heat wave that knocked flowers off the vine helter-skelter. "We panicked," recalls Deborah. "We tried to buy other Anderson Valley Gewurztraminer, but everybody else had the same problem we had. We talked to our former winemaker, down at Concannon, and he led us to the Wentes, who had some fruit available from their Arroyo Seco Vineyard, in Monterey County. It's different, but very good, and helped us to keep a wine available at that price point to our restaurant accounts and our loyal customers."

Klein points to their reliance on oak ovals as a major benefit to Gewurztraminer. "We ferment in oak ovals, then we allow the wine to remain on the lees until, usually, late April. We also use a 'cooling flag' inside the barrels to control fermentation temperature. You might call it a 'bulkhead fitting, if you were into sailing boats. It's really just a narrow stainless steel cooling panel that is connected by piping to a glycol unit outside. It really helps to make the fruit and the flavors more obvious, more defined. All I know is this: every time I go visit my friends in the Napa Valley, our Gewurz is what they want to trade for or buy!"

The real heavy hitter in this delightful lineup has been appropriately nicknamed Scary Spice at Navarro: The Vendage Tardive ($18). (And don't go looking for your French/English dictionary. They accidentally misspelled it on the label, and ATF conveniently overlooked the missing "n.")

This is a late-picked, but non-botrytised beauty with heady nutmeg spice and camphor, with lush, near-dry lilac, apple and licorice fruit. "It's our 'monster' Gewurz," says Ted. "It was harvested from extremely ripe fruit that refused to rot, but the juice was fermented as dry as the yeast would allow, which is about 3.7%."