2009-09-13

Sweet Roses and Sunshine

Comparisons to fruit, vegetables, animals, minerals or what have you are all very well, but it's illuminating to compare more directly, so as to see what is really going on.

This thought was triggered by a glass of Trimbach Gewürztraminer '06 (truly excellent wine, 4+), since it bore a strong scent of rose petals and lychees, along with an interesting mealy, cooked grain character which for me is very typical of Alsace. And by a handy coincidence, the next day I was in a lovely garden with several varieties of rose. None of them bethought me of Gewürz. In fact, the more I sniffed, the more I found other, un-flowery scents. One had a definite lemon sherbet edge and something of milk, while another was very rose-y, but in an expensive talc sort of way. A third was green and fresh, but also, surprisingly, buttery.

I suppose Gewürz will still remind me of roses, but perhaps now the memory will be more vivid, and precise. Or perhaps not, but it was a lovely way to spend twenty minutes on a sunny summer day.