Yep, it’s time again for a new New Year’s Resolution!

The Fun kind! The wine kind!

Wait, what? I get another Resolution Do-Over? Great!

Let’s talk about it! Let’s talk Riesling!

If you’ve been on this monthly resolution journey from the beginning, you know that this will be a great adventure. It’s a win-win, because I am setting everyone up for fun and success on a monthly basis. Learn about wine and feel accomplished.

If you want to see what you have missed there is a year in review of all 12 fun monthly wine resolutions. Click here to join the fun! Do them in any order. Feel virtuous that you have completed a New Year’s Resolution. Woo!

Back to this month.

Let’s get down to it. It’s all about the Rieslings!

Riesling wines wear so many hats, so to speak. They have an insane amount of different styles based on where it is grown and how it is made. No matter your taste, there is a style of Riesling out there that you will like. If you like white wine at all, that is.

If you want to stump someone’s skill with a blind wine tasting give them a Riesling. Give them four of them and odds are they will guess wrong each time. I took a blind wine tasting workshop a few years ago, and the week we focused on white wines the first four were Riesling. No one got them right. No One. At least two of the participants were sommeliers from some of the top restaurants in New York. There is no shame in not being able to identify a Riesling. They hide in plain sight.

Jancis Robinson is a well known wine critic and is a Master of Wine. Trust me, she knows her stuff. She is also honest about how hard it is for someone to taste a wine blind for identification purposes. Riesling in particular is a tough one. She and another wine professional analyzed two white wines. They tried to determine which was the California Chardonnay and which was the white burgundy. It turns out they were both Rieslings! You can read more about her honest appraisal of blind wine tasting here. It’s a great read..

I’ll do a post about Blind Wine Tastings another time. Basically, you don’t know what wine you are tasting.

Let’s move on to Riesling.

What you need to know about Riesling:

Riesling can range from bone dry to very sweet. It is an aromatic white grape variety. I did a post that talked a lot about aroma, and how to think about it without overthinking it. You can check it out here. I will do a shorter version of it here.

An aromatic wine just means the aromas are more expressive, they are easier to smell. Another aromatic white wine is Sauvignon Blanc. Sauvignon Blanc wines will usually smell more herbal (when it isn’t smelling like gooseberry, but that is a different topic all together.) Riesling will smell more fruity and floral. As always, there are exceptions.

Use aroma to add to the enjoyment and anticipation of drinking the wine. Aromatic wines help that anticipation along. Do not feel the need to twist yourself up and identify the specifics like green fruit, stone fruit, or dried fruit. However, you do you.

Know more to add to the fun

If you understand some of the basics you will be able to choose a Riesling with more confidence. You don’t need to be an expert at all.

Basically wine tasting involves sweetness, acidity, and bitterness (tannins.) A good wine is a balanced wine. The wine shouldn’t taste like candy or lemon juice or strong tea. If it does, the wine is not balanced.

Rieslings are high in acidity, but you shouldn’t really be aware of it. Acid adds a brightness and freshness, and complements the natural sweetness of the grape. (I could do a whole thing on acidity in wine but that would make this resolution less fun.) The wine maker can adjust the levels during fermentation so that you are more or less aware of the sweetness. I really simplified that here, but unless you want to do a deep dive, just go with it.

Let’s talk about Riesling in Germany first.

Many of German’s vineyards are on river banks.

With Riesling everyone thinks first of Germany.

First of all, Germany is part of the Old World in terms of wine. In the Old World (basically, Europe) there are a tremendous amount of rules concerning what you can grow, how you can grow it, and how you can label it. They have been doing this for a long, long time.

They know how to make those levels of acidity and sweetness dance.

Fun fact: In France, Italy and Spain, the classifications are based on a quality hierarchy. In Germany, the wines are categorized by sweetness levels.

So that you can have fun trying to pronounce all of the German wine levels, here is a link to WSET (Wine Spirits and Education Trust) How-to-Say-it.

Here we go:

Basic Rieslings will classified as Qualitatätswein (this is when you may want to refer to how to say this.) These will be light bodied, dry, fruity and refreshing.

In Prädikatswein wines, the categories are based on sugar levels in the grapes. Kabinett Rieslings are light in body, with high acidity (think apples). They vary between medium sweetness with low alcohol to dry with medium alcohol. Remember when I said how the winemakers can make the levels of acidity and sweetness dance. This is it.

Then you have Spätlese(late-harvest) and Auslese. Odds are that the wines are getting sweeter. Then you have Beerenauslese and Trockenbeerenauslese (often referred to as TBA, because even with a pronunciation guide it’s a lot.) The latter two are desert wines and quite expensive. Think similar to a Sauternes in France.

Trocken on a label means dry. In Trockenbeerenauslese, the Trocken refers to dried grapes, not a dry style.

Each region in Germany differs, but just know that Kabinett is always the driest. A huge advantage with Riesling is that the bottle usually states that it is a Riesling. This is different from other grape types where you often are just told where the wine is from and you are supposed to know what the varietal is.

Regardless, styles differ from producer to producer, and you may want to read the label carefully to determine what style you are buying. If you have a reliable wine salesperson, see if they can advise. I prefer dry to sweet, except for dessert wines, but many people don’t feel that way.

Helpful hint: check the alcohol content. The higher the percentage, the drier it will probably be. (Do a deep dive into the science of this should you want.)

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Let’s Move on to France (Alsace, specifically)

These wines are very different from German Rieslings on many levels. Alsatian wines are more likely to be dry and full bodied. (Helpful hint: body means how the wine feels in your mouth, like tasting cream versus milk.)

Also, now we are back to ranking wines by presumed quality and not sugar. There is Alsace and then Alsace Grand Cru. Even beyond that, there are incredible differences among the various sites. No wonder it’s so hard to determine which wine is a Riesling in a blind wine tasting. The variations are mind boggling.

Many Alsatian Rieslings can benefit from bottle age and can last for decades. They develop petrol-like aromas. I personally think that sounds awful, but I hear that that is a good thing. Hmm.

Now we can move on to Austria

Austrian Rieslings are more similar to Alsace than they are to German Rieslings. They are mostly dry and full bodied. However, the flavors may be different than France. If you want, pick up a bottle of Alsatian Riesling and Austrian and compare. Given the many differences among even the French Rieslings this could be an endless endeavor. Just saying.

Let’s go New World

Simply put, New World wines are anything other than Europe. I did a deeper dive about this in the January New Year’s Resolution if you want to look at it here. For Riesling purposes, New World is United States, Australia and New Zealand. You may find it elsewhere, but in small quantities.

We can start in the United States

In the United States, Riesling is grown in way more states than I knew about before I started writing this post. I originally just thought of New York, California, Washington and Oregon. It turns out that Michigan is a huge producer of it. Idaho, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Texas also produce Riesling wines. There may be more. Depending on where you live, you may be able to find these wines wherever you buy wine. If that’s your thing.

All of these states make wines that vary in style from dry to sweet. In many cases, the wines will list on the label where the wine falls in the dry to sweet spectrum. Some wines will call themselves Dry Riesling on the label. Even then there will be a huge variation.

I have been to many wineries in the Finger Lakes in New York. I have tasted delicious Rieslings there, and some that I literally made a face. If you see the term RS, it stands for residual sugar. If you like sweet wines, then you may like those with a high percentage. If not, stay clear.

If you are looking for a dry Riesling you could ask your wine retailer for a recommendation. You could also check the alcohol content that I mentioned above. Low alcohol with Riesling, often means the wine is sweet.

Let’s head to Australia

Australia produces some fantastic Rieslings. Be on the lookout for those from Clare Valley and Edna Valley. Most of their Rieslings are dry and medium bodied. They also have some that are age worthy, should that be your thing. They do make some sweet wines with it as well.

While we are in the neighborhood, let’s talk about New Zealand.

New Zealand produces some delicious Rieslings, mainly from South Island. Most of them are made in a dry style with medium body. While they do make a few age worthy wines, most should be consumed young.

Now to FOOD Fun!

One of the greatest things about Riesling is how well it gets along with so many foods.

Important tip: Wine rarely affects how food will taste, but food can affect how wine will taste.

I have recommended Riesling in a few of my posts when choosing a wine when everyone else is drinking beer. It was also one of my two choices to have when looking for an inexpensive wine when everyone else is drinking beer to go with spicy food. Click on the Riesling tag below. You will find all the posts.

It’s great with Chinese food, spicy food, seafood, Indian food, fatty food, cheese, and salads. It can be great with dessert. Experiment!

Have fun with it!

Don’t you feel virtuous! You should! You successfully completed a New Year’s Resolution!

April New Year’s Resolution is all about fun with Riesling Wine