2014: the year of riesling
IT’S TIME TO SPREAD THE GOSPEL about this glorious and misunderstood grape
Imake no apologies for my love of riesling, and while I am not alone, one of the great mysteries of wine is why more people don’t share my passion.
Ask those who work in wine, and riesling is quite often at the top of the list of most-loved white grapes, along with chardonnay.
But the prevailing sentiment among those who produce riesling is that it’s a tough sell. From Austria to Australia, Germany to the Niagara, I have sat with winemakers, scratching our heads while drinking this most delicious elixir, wondering why more consumers haven’t made the jump.
Is it because it’s too expensive? No. Riesling is no more expensive than any other grape for top-end wines, and it’s easy to find great wines under $20. Is it because it’s sweet? This is the greatest wine myth out there. Many regions produce dry riesling, and those that leave residual sugar in their wines do so to balance the acidities.
Maybe riesling represents a style of white wine that is out of vogue? Nope. What’s hot in the world of white wine these days? New Zealand sauvignon blanc and sparkling wines. What they have in common is that they are super fresh, with no oak flavours, and quite often under 13 per cent alcohol. And to you haters in the know who say riesling has residual sugar in it, I say that the vast majority of Kiwi sauvignon blanc and sparkling wines do as well.
I’m tired of the misconceptions and reticence. I’m tired of hearing from winemakers that they might pull out their riesling vines because the grape is too tough a sell.
So following in the footsteps of ex-Torontonian Paul Grieco (now based in New York), I’m going militant, albeit in my own way.
In 2008, Grieco started a “summer of riesling” by offering only riesling by the glass at his wine bar Terroir in New York’s East Village. Since then, he has spread his gospel that “riesling is the greatest grape on planet Earth.”
I would love to travel the world convincing people that riesling rules, like Grieco, but that’s not my thing. What I can do is devote at least some of my column space to advocating for riesling and helping you understand what the grape is all about.
So over the next year, I will devote 12 columns to highlighting great riesling growing regions and styles. All you need to do is be courageous and try one. Deal?
A good place to start would be to explain what it is I look for in a riesling. And perhaps the most important reason why people are hesitant to try one: the residual sugar. It ain’t sweet — it’s fruity
If you took every riesling in a store and put them side by side, you would notice that the alcohol levels would range from around eight per cent to more than 13 per cent. This is unique to riesling. Why is that?
Alcohol in wine comes from fermented sugar, so lower alcohol levels mean that less sugar has been fermented. This could mean that there wasn’t a lot of sugar in the juice to start with. I have seen a number of chardonnays and pinot noirs at around 12 per cent. All the sugar in these wines has been converted to alcohol — the grapes were simply picked when they were less ripe, so there was less sugar to begin with.
In the case of riesling, lower alcohol levels mean that the fermentation stopped before all the sugar was turned into alcohol. Why would winemakers do this? To answer this is to understand how we taste. And from this, why I do not refer to all wines that have residual sugar as “sweet.”
Sweetness, like sourness and bitterness, is a taste sensation. It is not based solely on the amount of sugar in your drink. The key is how acid plays a role in how we taste. Acid and sugar work hand in hand. When they are in balance, they neutralize one another. This balance between sweet and sour, when done to perfection, means that neither stands out. This is the key to making a great riesling — finding that precarious balance between sugar and acid. When the balance is there, a great riesling will taste “dry,” no matter how much residual sugar is in the wine.
But residual sugar also does something else to the wine: it amplifies the fruit flavours. This is why these lower-alcohol wines are referred to as “fruity” in the region that arguably produces the archetype of this riesling style: Germany’s Mosel.
Ultimately, it’s the acid levels in the grapes when they are picked that will dictate how much sugar the winemaker decides to leave in the wines. In warmer growing regions, where acid levels are lower at harvest, there is little need to leave any sugar in the wine. In the coolest areas, where the acidities are high, there is a tendency to leave more sugar.
This helps explain why Mosel rieslings tend to be made in the fruitier, lower-alcohol style and warmer places, like Australia’s Clare Valley or France’s Alsace, tend to yield higher-alcohol rieslings. This is one of the glories of the grape. More so than other grape varieties, riesling will let the winemaker know how it should be made. The soil, and especially climate, will dictate the sugar and acid levels at harvest.
I asked Volker Besch, of the Mosel winery Mönchhof, why he didn’t make the higher-alcohol dry style. He told me, “When you go to a dance, you dance with the girls in the room.” In other words, you work with what you’ve got. I will expand on what that means for Mosel in my next riesling column.
So how do you know which style of riesling you are getting? While this is a bit simplistic, I tend to look at the alcohol level. The lower the alcohol, the more the wine will show exotic fruit notes and a richer texture. As you move up in alcohol, the wine will be leaner, mineral, and the fruit will taste of citrus, limes and lemons in particular.
You have nothing to fear from rieslings. They have remarkable complexity. They are refreshing. They age magnificently, yet can be opened now. They can be drunk as apéritifs, with seafood, with spicy meals, or with cheese.
While I have no preference with respect to style, I know many people who like either the fruity or dry variety. I recently tasted more than 40 German rieslings, from different regions and made in different styles. So look in today’s suggestions for some help finding the right riesling for you. Try one — I dare ya.