The Auswine Forum

I recently came to own 2 bottles of 1997 Hugel Gewurztraminer Vendange Tardive from Alsace.

I'm keen to try one, but not sure what food to have it with.
Being a late harvest wine would suggest with desert, but I gather the degree of sweetness can vary a lot with VT wines (some are even vinified completely dry).

So the question is, what kind of deserts would it go best with?

Would you be able to match it with cheese (say a blue)?

Will the fact that its Gewurztraminer VT (as opposed to say Riesling VT) affect your choice (ie is the Varietal or the VT style the main determinant of what the best food match is)?

Thanks for any advice / comments.

DLo was generous enough to offer a 1990 VT Riesling and a 1990 VT Pinot Gris when i visited Canberra recently. The Riesling was close to dry, the PG was a little sweeter but not a dessert style. In fact I'm yet to taste a VT that is a full dessert style. Are you sure this is dessert-sweet?

If you go cheese it wil need to be a fruity one.

I would have gone a fairly tradiitonal guess, slightly spicy thai dish for this. we went with spiced seafood for the two VT's above,

cheers

Andrew

Thanks Wizz for your suggestions.

You're right, its not sweet like a Sauternes say. But sometimes, I'm led to believe, Botrytis can come into play with VT wines.

Problem seems to be that you can't tell from the label exactly how sweet its going to be, unless I guess you're familiar with the producer.

Can anyone who has had lots of Hugel VT help?

I would go for some nice rip Munster, possibly with some bread flavoured with cumin.

Epoisse also works well.

The tasting note from the Hugel site can be found here

there are lots of cheese that would match with it although i don't know wether you can find them easily in Australia; but a blue cheese, a roquefort, a munster, a pont leveque or a livarot would be great.
Let me suggset you to drink it as an apetizer, it's great in the evening with salted crackers as well; the contrast is worth trying....
Anyway enjoy it
as we say here "à la tienne, Etienne!" (Cheers)