2014 Dowsett Family Gewürztraminer Celilo Vineyard

• By Stephen Tanzer
  Washington Turns Up the Heat (Nov 2015), 11/1/2015, (See more on Vinous...)

  (Dowsett Family Winery Gewürztraminer Celilo Vineyard Washington) Login and sign up and see review text.

Full Pull

• By Paul Zitarelli
  Full Pull Constituent Services II, 4/3/2017

  (Dowsett Family Gewurztraminer Celilo Vineyard) Hello friends. This is the second in our “Constituent Services” series, where we respond to the squeaky-wheel list members who continue asking for more white and sparkling wines (and this month, I’m rolling rosé into the mix as well). Many of you know that I’ve shifted my own collecting/cellaring towards a higher proportion of whites and bubblies. They’re just so damned rewarding to age, and all it takes is a few years before they show signs of maturity, signs of tertiary complexity. They’re also fabulous, versatile food wines. In February we offered a trio of wines, and of course once that offer went out, we were inundated by wineries and importers and distributors wanting to pour more of these categories. Poor us. We missed March (barely), so I’m taking the liberty of bumping our April Constituent Services offer to a full six-pack. We’ve just been tasting too many wonderful wines to trim this any further. Because we’re including so many wines, I will endeavor to keep each description short. Or shortish anyway. This is the sixth vintage of Chris Dowsett’s Celilo Gewurz that we’ve offered. It’s a seminal Washington white as far as I’m concerned, and ages beautifully (I recently opened a bottle of the 2010 and was sending Chris drunk-happy texts by the end of the bottle). Chris has been making Gewurz in the northwest since 1996, and has been working with a 1984-planted block of Celilo fruit since 2003, making this 2014 his twelfth vintage working with this site. Over the years, Chris has developed a winemaking style best suited to Celilo Gewurz fruit. He ferments to near-dryness, but avoids the bitter notes that Gewurz can produce at complete dryness, and then he ages in neutral barrels to add richness and weight. The 2014 is as plush a version as I can remember, clocking in at 14.2% listed alc; this was a warm year in the Gorge. It offers super Gewurz aromatics – lychee and papaya and spice – and then this wonderful quality of fanning out and saturating the entire palate. Made for takeout Thai food. This nabbed matching 90pt reviews from three diverse palates: Stephen Tanzer, Jeb Dunnuck, and Sean Sullivan. In the interests of space, I’ll limit myself to Sean’s review. Wine Enthusiast: Copyrighted material withheld.