If you’re considering placing your first tentative toe on the Gewürztraminer path, then you could do a lot worse than using this Decanter-award-winning Domaine Paul Blanck 2015 as your starting block. Its grapes were born of clay and limestone soil on the scenic slopes of Alsace — on the French side but barely 10km west of the German border. And it sure tastes Teutonic: if it could make music, it’d be much more alpine horn than accordion.
Gewürztraminer is the dictionary definition of floral wine, and rose is by far the dominant scent here — more specifically, bergamot (or Turkish Delight, if you want to get poetic about it). It’s like magenta petals fluttering up your nostrils, but there’s also a rubbery Riesling quality floating about in there, with off-dry citrus and grapefruit on the tongue.
If you’ve had bad experiences with cheap floral wines before, don’t worry — this doesn’t smack you in the throat like an elderly guesthouse owner’s acrid perfume (sorry to stereotype you, elderly guesthouse owners, I’m sure most of you smell divine). No… it’s far more subtle than that.
The label promises lychee aromas, but in all honesty I have no idea what a lychee smells like so I can’t comment on that — they’re not the commonest fruit in dreary old England. We do enjoy our spicy Asian food though, and that’s exactly what this will pair well with.
4.5 NINJA STARS
Paul Blanck Gewürztraminer 2015: £11.99 (down from £14.99) at Waitrose. Vegan, screw cap. 13.5% vol
The Wine Ninjas 
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