I'm sitting out on my postage-stamp- sized patio (I like to think of it as the "South 40") on a warm, picture-perfect early summer day, sipping a cold, palate-perfect early summer wine.

It's one of those aromatic whites we talked about in last week's column: a fragrant, bone-dry, refreshing wine, neither flabby nor oaky nor alcoholic. It seems to capture in a glass all the soft, seductive fragrances of the season. Whiffs of blossom and fresh-cut fruit, hints of spice and honey — you get the picture. It's got everything going for it, and yet it's going nowhere. Misery, thy name is gewürztraminer!

What's in a name? In this case, nothing good. Friends of mine who retail wine just throw up their hands at the mere mention of the stuff. Can't sell it, they tell me. Why? That name.

To be fair, gewürz carries some other baggage with it also. Its best examples come from France's Alsace, and are labeled with so many producer/village/vineyard names (in addition to the name of the grape) that you need an advanced linguistics degree to sort through them. It is made in a whole range of styles, from bone-dry to ultra-sweet, and unless you know the verbiage that goes with each, it is not always clear what's in the bottle in front of you.

Most difficult of all is the intensely perfumed character that the ripest Alsatian gewürztraminers display. As wine writer Oz Clarke points out in his "Encyclopedia of Grapes," "not all wine lovers can take it. For some, gewürztraminer is a parody of perfume and powder that sashays around them."

Those who prefer wines that go easy on the perfume and powder need not skip past the gewürz shelf entirely. When made in a dry, fruity, new-world style, it's a wine that anyone who likes a fresh, crisp white can embrace.

A few wineries craft examples that will improve with a few years' bottle aging, taking on flavors of fruit candy and softening the racy acids just a bit. But in general, you're safest seeking out gewürztraminers from the most recent vintage. They take well to chilling, and are particularly serviceable with spicy summer dips and picnic foods such as cold noodle salads.

This may sound odd, but if you were to combine the grapefruity zest of fresh, young gewürz with the full, lightly buttery flavors of chardonnay, you might find yourself sipping a glass of viognier. Though equally unpronounceable (it's VEE-own-yay), this is becoming a very hip sip, propelled by the popularity of Rhone wines in general.

Robert Goodfriend of Harlequin Winery puts it bluntly: "A lot of winemakers don't like viognier because it really [messes] with your head. But I make pinot noir. I'm used to wines like that."

Goodfriend, whose new 2004 "Clifton Vineyard" bottling is a fragrant fruit bowl of a wine, speaks of honeysuckle, peach and Bosc pear when sniffing his viognier. You can find all that and much more, as you can with the gorgeous new viognier from Syncline. Syncline's 2004 is 60 percent Clifton fruit, but it's a creamier style, slightly spritzy, with citrus flavors outshining the floral notes.

Syncline's James Mantone agrees with Goodfriend that it is viognier's tendency to ripen unevenly that gives winemakers such headaches. The vine has an unusually tiny window of optimal ripeness at harvest time. In response, Mantone has instituted extreme measures: managing the arrangement of the grape bunches within the vine canopy (opting for maximum sun), and picking into small bin boxes to avoid prematurely crushing the grapes. New oak barrels, both winemakers believe, are best avoided with viognier.

"I prefer to look at barrels as a way of changing the texture," Mantone says, "not as a way of flavoring the wine." And that's exactly what these aromatic whites deserve.

In Memoriam:

Baker Ferguson and Gene Ford, who both passed away in June, contributed greatly to my knowledge and enjoyment of wine. Both men loved wine, and especially loved talking about and exploring the history and culture of the vine.

Gene Ford was a member of an informal wine-writers group that met during the late 1980s at Le Tastevin restaurant on Lower Queen Anne. His books and videos on wine and spirits and his passionate defense of moderate social drinking provided a much-needed counterweight to the neo-Prohibitionists of the day.

Baker Ferguson was co-founder, along with his late wife, Jean, of L'Ecole No 41, Walla Walla's fourth winery. I interviewed him at length for a chapter in a book and without a doubt he was, and will always remain, one of the most charming, knowledgeable and fascinating characters I have ever met.

It would not be possible to summarize, even briefly, so rich a life. But the winery, founded in 1983 upon his retirement as president of the Whitman College Board of Trustees, immediately made its mark upon the state's nascent wine industry. L'Ecole's first release, a 1983 merlot, won a gold medal from the Northwest Enological Society. It remained a favorite of the Fergusons, so much so that when Jean passed away a few years ago, a specially engraved 3-liter bottle became the final resting place for her ashes, and another bottle was filled with the last of the 1983 merlot and set aside. That bottle was drunk at a private memorial for Baker last month, and will become his final resting place.

A public celebration of the life of Ferguson will be held at Whitman College on July 28.

Paul Gregutt is the author of "Northwest Wines." His column appears weekly in the Wine section. He can be reached by e-mail at wine@seattletimes.com.