Producer: Spy Valley

Varietal: Gewurztraminer

Vintage: 2008

Region: Marlborough, New Zealand

Price: ~ $20

Merry belated Christmas! If you don't celebrate Christmas don't expect a "Happy Holidays" from me. In fact, you probably won't get a genuine Merry Christmas from me anyway since I'm pretty sure I've stopped celebrating the actual religious holiday of Christmas. Festivus anyone?

More Spy Valley... the bouquet on this gewurztraminer smells of cinnamon, passion fruit and honey with a slight hint of cloves. The rep behind the table said that he could sense a bit of melon too but couldn't get the cloves. A nicely refreshing change to my reds, the palate wasn't too different from the bouquet. It tasted of cloves, cinnamon, honey and a bit of pepper and had a silky clean finish.

So it turns out that 1/3 of all sick days are requested on Mondays. Also, January seems to incur more sick days than any other month. I think I'm feeling a bit under the weather...

Happy new year!

J