Riesling remains a great but tricky grape, source of some of Germany’s best wines and many of its worst. It can also be a major disappointment in Alsace, in comparison with Pinot Gris or a zippy Gewurztraminer.
What is its problem? In a word, sweetness. At its most mediocre it tastes like a brand of sugar water and hardly like wine at all. At its best it is sumptuously luscious - but still sweet. The great drawback of Liebfraumilch and similar popular wines is exactly this. It is something that makes them easy to resist - and, for many people, easy to like - though it is not the happiest of attributes, even if, in Britain, we still drink them in quantity as cool thirst quenchers.
Almost any bottle featuring the words Rhine and Riesling on the label needs to be treated warily unless you know that it comes from a reputable German wine producer, which of course makes a big difference. So, very often, does the addition of a single magical German word to the label information. The word is “trocken,” which means dry and which, when you sample a good example, introduces you to a different experience altogether. In Germany nowadays the word is quite prevalent, though you do not see it so often here in Britain, hooked as we are on the soppier German wines.
A benchmark example of a trocken Riesling comes from the young German producer Peter Klein, available by delivery from Naked Wines of Norfolk for £15.99 full price or £11.45 to regular customers identified as “angels.” It has a refreshingly flinty, somewhat mineral taste, the opposite of the Rhenish norm. Though the 2012 vintage is now sold out, the 2013, which I have yet to taste, is now in stock.
2 November 2014
What is its problem? In a word, sweetness. At its most mediocre it tastes like a brand of sugar water and hardly like wine at all. At its best it is sumptuously luscious - but still sweet. The great drawback of Liebfraumilch and similar popular wines is exactly this. It is something that makes them easy to resist - and, for many people, easy to like - though it is not the happiest of attributes, even if, in Britain, we still drink them in quantity as cool thirst quenchers.
Almost any bottle featuring the words Rhine and Riesling on the label needs to be treated warily unless you know that it comes from a reputable German wine producer, which of course makes a big difference. So, very often, does the addition of a single magical German word to the label information. The word is “trocken,” which means dry and which, when you sample a good example, introduces you to a different experience altogether. In Germany nowadays the word is quite prevalent, though you do not see it so often here in Britain, hooked as we are on the soppier German wines.
A benchmark example of a trocken Riesling comes from the young German producer Peter Klein, available by delivery from Naked Wines of Norfolk for £15.99 full price or £11.45 to regular customers identified as “angels.” It has a refreshingly flinty, somewhat mineral taste, the opposite of the Rhenish norm. Though the 2012 vintage is now sold out, the 2013, which I have yet to taste, is now in stock.
2 November 2014
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