This past Sunday, my wife invited over several of her South African ex-pat friends over for a Mother’s Day braai at our house. There were lots of kids here, I lost count around 12, running around our yard and in our house. There was lots of food and excellent wines being passed around. One really captured my wife’s attention, a very sweet and fruity white wine. So much so, that she’s kept the bottle and given it to me telling me to go find some more of it.
The wine is the Robertson Winery Gewürztraminer Special Late Harvest 2004 (link). It’s a South African wine made by the fairly young Robertson Winery (Est. 1941). This white wine is very sweet and fruity, with sugar at harvest at 244 g/L and a residual sugar of 47.4 g/L, according to the label. I’m no experienced wine snob, but it sure was a tasty wine.
So my next challenge is: contact one of their distributors in New Jersey and see how I can get some more of this stuff.
Have you ever had this wine, or any of the other Robertson Winery wines? What did you think of them? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
Tags:
South Africa,
wine,
Robertson Winery,
gewurztraminer
Programmer, husband, father, singer, guitarist, tinkerer, reverse engineer, strange, and living in New Jersey. 
I wonder how the people behind this wine are making it so tasty.
I guess this might be the difference in climate and seasons of the production region.
Sounds like a wine I would like as well.
Seems to be available in NY and CT but not Jersey yet.
http://www.wine-searcher.com/prof/wine-select.lml?ID=XLHGBSKNPDD00BZ
I just had the 2006 late harvest last weekend and just bought two more bottles today. I asked my extremely knowledgeable for something exotic and reasonable to pair with spicy fresh mexican food and it was absolutely perfect.
I know whites like this are usually served in narrow wine glasses but I recommend grabbing your largest cabernet or zin glass and enjoy the wonderful complex aroma.
To all of the above –
Thank you for your positive comments – they are really appreciated.
The Robertson Winery Gewurtz has shown great success in the USA over a very short span of time, so much so that our Importer, The Indigo Wine Group – see http://www.indigowinegroup.com – has asked us to plant more Gewurtz to fulfill this growing wine US wine market.
South Africa has a 350 year old track record of sound wine making, and are allrounders as far as other varietals go too.
If you are looking for something different, try our Chenin Blanc, which is a fruit driven dry white wine and historically been one of the leading cultivars in SA winemaking. South Africa has more Chenin Blanc plantings than the Loire and rest of the world combined to give you an example of how serious we are about the grape! It has a unique flavour profile showing characteristics of quince, almond and fig notes supported by tropical fruit.
We have a unique terrior, and now is the time to start experiencing South African wine.
Think South Africa – Drink Robertson!
Regards,
Barry Kok
Marketing Manager
Robertson Winery
Barry: Thanks for stopping by! I’ll apparently be in RSA at the end of 2008, and in the Cape Town area in December. Any chance the Robertson Winery offers a tour?
Hi Dossy –
It has been two years and I only see your reply now! My e-mail address is barry@robertsonwine.co.za! If ever you are in SA, please contact me. I will give you a great experience!
Take care!
Barry Kok
Marketing Director
Robertson Winery
The next time we’re planning a trip to SA, I will definitely get in touch – thanks!
Cool!