A wine writer often functions as a kind of Command Central for his friends. For example, I recently received two phone calls from two different friends. “I’m making a butternut squash gratin,” said the first. “What wine should I serve?” “Gewurztraminer,” was my terse reply. “But I don’t have any,” he said petulantly. “Get some,” I commanded.

(My friends are used to such imperiousness. They pay no attention, serving what they like anyway, with the added fillip: “Matt told me to serve gewurztraminer. But I think this pinot noir works really well, don’t you?”)

Then came the second call, from another friend. “I’m making onion soup,” she said. “What wine goes best?” I told her gewurztraminer is the ideal wine for almost anything with a lot of onions. “But I don’t have any gewurz,” she replied. You already know what I said.

Now, before you think I’ve got something weird going on about gewurztraminer, I must confess that I myself don’t drink it very often. And I don’t keep any in stock. But there are moments when gewurztraminer is the ticket for certain foods where, really, nothing else will do as well.

I like gewurztraminer well enough to have actually visited its birthplace, the northern Italian Alps called Tramin (population 3,148), also known as Termeno, its Italian name.

I met Martin Foradori Hofstatter, whose family winery, called J. Hofstatter, is arguably the most prestigious in the zone. Their best gewurztraminer, from a single vertiginous vineyard called Kolbenhof, is one of the world’s best. “This is it,” said Mr. Hofstatter, his arm proprietarily encompassing the town square. “This is the birthplace of the gewurztraminer grape.”

Gewurztraminer does have an Italian name (traminer aromatico), but nobody in Tramin/Termeno ever uses it. “Look, it’s gewurztraminer,” Mr. Hofstatter said in fluent English. “Since the record goes back to at least the year 1000, as the grape variety called tramin, it’s only right to stick with the German.”

Everything in this border area is expressed in two languages: the native German traditionally spoken and a fluent but culturally bolted-on Italian. Imagine Italians with Germanic precision (if you can), or Germans with Italianate flair (ditto), and you’ve got the inhabitants of Alto Adige/Sud-Tirol.

Anyway, the grape called traminer (literally “of Tramin” in German) mutated into numerous strains easily distinguishable by grape skin color. Gewurztraminer, for example, has a reddish skin. Other strains have white or blue skin.

All traminer varieties are made into white wines, never mind the skin color. But they’re not all equally aromatic. This is why gewurztraminer stood out. The “gewurz” prefix says it all: “spicy.” A less literal, but more revealing, translation would be perfumed or aromatic, as this “spiciness” is more the savor of, say, gingerbread than the standard spice rack.

A good gewurztraminer calls forth all those flavor associations we wine writers so love: lychee, roses, geranium, honey, ginger, and white pepper. That’s quite an array, which explains why a truly fine gewurztraminer must also have restraint. A bad gewurz, like a boy on a first date, can be obnoxiously perfumed.

The trick is coolness. Gewurztraminer loves to ripen, seemingly adding on yet more and more flavor. If not restrained by coolness, it becomes overly opulent, with explosive fragrances and high alcohol. (Think of Donald Trump as a white wine and you’ve got it.)

True, gewurztraminer is by its very nature a flavorful grape. You don’t want insipidity either. Its challenge is to be simultaneously exotic and restrained, like a tribal chief in a Savile Row suit. There are few places on the planet that can reconcile this conflicting demand.

Now, about that business of food. Although a good gewurz is pleasant on its own, its greatness – indeed its essentialness – doesn’t come into view until it’s put into play against the right food. As previously mentioned, anything with a lot of onions is ideal. Really, there’s no better wine for onion soup or an onion tart than gewurztraminer.

In Alsace, gewurztraminer is frequently the first choice for their local foie gras. It is an ideal pairing, as gewurztraminer’s spiciness knifes through the fatty, rather bland richness of foie gras.

The same applies to various winter squashes such as my friend’s butternut squash gratin or a simple baked acorn squash. If you’ve never tried butternut squash soup paired with gewurztraminer you’re really missing something.

Then there’s the more complicated genre of Indian and coconut milk-infused Thai curry dishes. Here flavors can get kaleidoscopic and, unlike a straightforward butternut squash soup, it’s hard to be categorical in insisting that gewurz will work with all curries all the time. But, a la Lincoln, you can say that gewurztraminer is the thing for most curries, most of the time.

Finally, there is cheese. Here, things get more specialized, specifically what can only be (admiringly) called “stinky” cheese such as a ripe Munster. I still recall a visit years ago to a 16th-century country restaurant in Alsace called Moulin du Kaegy. The cheese tray arrived laden with artisan Alsatian cheeses, most famously a pleasingly potent local Munster. With it came a complimentary bottle of a good local gewurz. “It’s the ideal wine for Munster and other strong cheeses,” explained the waiter. “So we include the wine as part of the cheese tray.” It was a revelation. (Later on, they also served a gewurztraminer sorbet that was simply brilliant.)

But which gewurztraminer? For once, the list is mercifully short. Gewurztraminer performs flawlessly in surprisingly few locations. The world’s great gewurztraminer zones are easily identified. In France it’s Alsace. In Italy, it’s Sud-Tirol/Alto Adige and parts of Friuli. In California, it’s Russian River Valley and Mendocino County’s Anderson Valley. Oregon’s Willamette Valley makes lovely gewurztraminer, although not much of it.

Gewurz is grown elsewhere, to be sure, such as Germany, Australia, Hungary, and Austria. But too often their gewurztraminers are either oily in texture (which is as unappealing as it sounds), overly sweet, cloyingly perfumed, or marred by bitterness in the aftertaste. That’s quite a list of possible flaws, which reveals why really fine gewurz is so rare.

HERE’S THE DEAL

What follows is hardly an exhaustive list of top gewurztraminer producers. But you won’t go wrong with any of the following. By the way, although gewurztraminer is wonderful when very young, the best wines can age surprisingly well. Vintage, this once, is nowhere near as important as the producer.

TRIMBACH “CUVEE DES SEIGNEURS DES RIBEAUPIERRE” GEWURZTRAMINER One of the greatest of all Alsatian gewurztraminers. Classic Alsace fruit intensity is allied with Trimbach’s signature stylistic severity. This is a gewurz that improves impressively with age. The 1999 is showing beautifully and is still currently available at Zachy’s and Sherry-Lehman, among other retailers. $29. Trimbach also makes a lovely, if less concentrated and dimensional, basic gewurztraminer that’s well worth pursuing. It’s widely available at $15.

J. HOFSTATTER “KOLBENHOF” GEWURZTRAMINERA model gewurz from where it all began. Elegant gewurztraminer, intense yet delicate, filled with finesse and restraint. Chelsea Wine Vault and Zachy’s, among others, are sources. $25.

NAVARRO VINEYARDS Located in the supremely cool Anderson Valley, Navarro makes one of America’s best gewurztraminers. More frequently seen on restaurant lists than retail shelves, Navarro can be found at Garnet Wines, among others. $19.

JERMANN TRAMINER AROMATICO Jermann (pronounced yare-mahn) makes soft, elegant, yet incisive gewurztraminer from the easternmost section of Friuli called the Colli Orientali. A classic of its type. Smith & Vine in Brooklyn stock it, among a few others. $35.