I’m confident that if you don’t like either one of these white varietals then you just haven’t tried enough of them. Both Albarino and Gewurztraminer are lesser known white varietals from Spain and Germany, so you aren’t likely to see many bottles pop up on grocery store shelves (although several large American producers now make a good Gewurztraminer). Their brilliance lies not in their rarity or complexity, but in the fact that both wines pair with a wide range of foods, and mostly with foods that are hard to pair wine with. Did I mention that they are also really cheap?
Albarino first came into my life as a result of an online food-wine pairing tool courtesy of Gallo. My buddy, who happens to be a Gallo employee, and I were messing around with this tool on Gallo’s website, trying to figure out what food-drink combo we would have for dinner. We decided on fish tacos, and Albarino came up as one of the possibilities for a good match. We tried it out and found that it worked perfectly. I tried it again a few weeks later with more traditional Mexican food and was highly impressed that the light white wine paired extremely well with the spicy Mexican food. Being a Mexican food lover, I was excited to have a reliable pairing to occasionally replace the margaritas and beer that traditionally accompany Mexican food. A short time ago, I bought six bottles of Albarino and have since been trying it out with a wide variety of foods, and each time, I’ve been impressed by its ability to work with food. Kraft mac and cheese is just the latest example of a good pairing that I’ve found. The cheesy pasta is heavy, and while I thought it might overpower the light wine, the acidity in the Albarino nicely offset the meal and was a refreshing drink to have with the pasta. Try out Albarino with almost any meal and I have the feeling that it’ll pair at least decently. Albarnio is by no means a complex wine, just a wine that loves food, so it definitely merits some playing time for anyone that likes to have wine with meals.
Gewurztraminer is a bit like Riesling’s little brother. It hasn’t gotten the recent press that Riesling has received (from Wine Spectator, Parker, me, etc.), but it is every bit as good a wine as its Germany brother. Gewurztraminer is another wine that loves food, especially food that is hard to pair with wine. Thai, Chinese, and even burgers come to mind as foods that pair well with Gewurztraminer. Mexican food even falls into this category as well. Like Albarino, Gewurztraminer works best with spicy foods, but it also has a bit more of a sugary-sweet taste, allowing it to give the sweet and sour combo to some dinner pairings. While I know that they exist, I have never seen a bottle of Gewurztraminer cost more than $20. This might cause some people to hesitate and to think that Gewurztraminer has a ceiling and can only be so good (if there aren’t high end options that are “better,” then the cheapest options are all trash, right?), this is absolutely not true. Like I said, some large American wine producers have been making quality Gewurztraminer that costs less than $10 per bottle. Its cheapness comes from the fact that it just isn’t a popular wine and that it just isn’t that widely grown. I blame its lack of success on the fact that its name is just so damn hard to pronounce. It’s hard for anyone to sound like a wine pro while saying “Gewurztraminer.” We have all learned how to say Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Cabernet Sauvignon, etc. like we are fluent in French, but this German wine just doesn’t roll off the tongue like Chardonnay or even its German brother, Riesling.
If you can get over the fact that both of these wines are somewhat hard to find, are mostly unheard of and unpopular, you will be pleasantly surprised and may be able to give your Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Girgio, and Riesling some company in your cellars. I promise that you’ll like them and that they will be the perfect wines for those dinner parties where you want to serve any food that doesn’t traditionally go with wine.
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