The only disadvantage to having a wine cellar is that bottles can get put
away for so long that you forget where you got the wine. A couple of weeks
ago, I bought up a bottle of Geyser Peak Gewürztraminer, a California wine.
If I hadn't read the label, I would have sworn it was from Germany; it had
the distinctive taste of a German wine, what I call a straw aftertaste.

The next time I was at the wine store, I asked for more but they said that
Geyser Peak got out of the Gewürztraminer business and was now making
upscale wines. They recommended a couple of other brands, but neither has
that German taste.

What is it about German wines that makes them taste that way? I would
suppose that the California vintners use the same grapes. Is there a
distinctively German yeast that imparts the flavor? My wife thought that the
other vintners might be purposely toning down the German-ness of their
Gewürztraminer as it might not be that appealing to the wider market.

Paul