Riesling is one of our favourite wine grapes, and in our view, very underappreciated! Perhaps often misinterpreted as being a sweet, floral wine – in fact Riesling comes in a range of sweetness levels, and its distinctive aroma is petrol! It’s complex but also really versatile – it’s an ideal wine for pairing harder to match food, for example if you have a range of dishes, or for very aromatic and spicy food.
We want to give a quick overview of Riesling, so if you’re not yet familiar with it, you will have a better idea of what you might like to try! Firstly we’ll go through some food pairing tips, and then explore a little more about four key Riesling wine regions: Germany, Austria, Alsace, and Australia. That being said, there are plenty of other great wine regions for Riesling e.g. North America, New Zealand, and the UK! Finally we’ll go through the levels of sweetness (using the German system.)
Flavour and food pairing
As mentioned, the most distinctive aroma associated with Riesling is petrol, which is particularly notable in older wines. It’s not bad though! Stone fruits are also common, as well as pear, lime, pineapple, jasmine, and honey. Riesling typically has good levels of acidity, making the resulting wine very well balanced (assuming you’ve got a good one).
Whilst German Riesling can be sweet or dry, most other Riesling wines are typically dry unless clearly stated. The off-dry varieties work particularly well with spicy food that have some sweetness e.g. a Pad Thai. In fact, the natural lime aromas and mix of sweet, acidic, and minerality means it often mirrors the characteristics of a lot of South-East Asian dishes, making it an obvious pairing. The off-dry versions are also great with slightly sweet dishes, like with some salads that have fruit or sweeter dressings; equally they help balance fatty meats like goose or pork belly.
Dry Riesling stands up well to complex, aromatic foods like cured fish (even with dill, capers etc.); at the same time doesn’t overpower delicate foods like crab or light cheeses. In fact, it’s ability to go with most foods is what makes Riesling a real winner for us – it’s the perfect wine for when you want to have several different dishes of food, like we commonly do!
Regions
Germany: The most commonly seen regions here for quality wines are Mosel, Rheingau and Pfalz. Mosel, with its famously steep slopes, generally produces delicate Rieslings, which are usually light in colour and sherbet-like. Rheingau is the birthplace of Riesling, and can have the lusciously sweet wines. Rieslings from here are oilier, with a firmer structure, and more stone fruit and tropical fruit. Pfalz is a very different style, fruity and concentrated, a bit closer in style to those from Wachau (in Austria) or Alsace. J J Prüm Wehlener Sonnenuhr from Mosel is an iconic off-dry Riesling with lots of lime zest, apricot and slate-like minerality. Dönnoff from Nahe, is another great example that is fantastic value, full of white flowers, grapefruit and orange.
Alsace: Rieslings are typically dry, high alcohol (often 13% - 14%) and phenolic – if you want that distinctive petrol aroma, Alsace is your best bet (particularly the aged versions). Skin contact is common so the colour is often a bit darker, and they also tend to have more minerality from volcanic soil, giving slate and smoky aromas.
Austria: Austrian wines in general are, in our opinion, underrated – so Austrian Rieslings are usually great value! The Rieslings here are most comparable to Alsace, but Austria has its own style, which is more earthy and savoury than French and German varieties. Similar to Austria’s most famous wine, Grüner Veltliner, Austrian Rieslings tend to have a tangy acidity, and there’s usually plenty of stone fruit with a hint of lime. Wines from Kamptal (and sometimes Kremstal) tend to be pure, crisp, mineral; whilst the Wachau region tends to be richer and more oily.
South Australia: It’s difficult to not love a Clare Valley Riesling – they are fantastic. They can be very dry, full of lime zest and minerality, really good with seafood. They often have a bit of lees ageing, which gives a chalky texture and adds that minerality and complexity. Eden Valley is another great, similar, region – but the wines here are generally a little softer and a bit more floral, with hints of jasmine. Fun fact: you get much more petrol flavours in Australia (and other warm regions) because of compound in Riesling called TDN which is released in fermentation and bottle ageing, which comes out much faster in warm weather. In Germany the highest ever amount of TDN found is 19mg/l; whereas in Adelaide Hills the average is 36 mg/l. So you will get this petrol aromas even in young wines.
Sweetness – German classifications
The German wine classification system, at least for Prädikatswein (and that’s the quality you should be drinking, and will most commonly find here) is built around the level of sugar in the grape must. This is because Riesling is a late ripening grape, and so ripeness (and hence level of sugar in the grapes) is prized. Unlike lower qualities, the wine here can’t be chaptalized i.e. the sugar is naturally occurring sugar, not added. Since it’s about the sugar in the grape must, not necessarily the residual sugar in the wine, you can get some variation in the sweetness of the resulting wine depending on how much the winemaker lets the sugars ferment (the alcohol % can be a clue here). So if you want a dry wine, also look out for the word ‘trocken’, meaning dry or ‘halbtrocken’ meaning half-dry.
Kabinett: This is usually the driest style of wine, and can be dry or off-dry, usually with good acidity too. The name literally means ‘cabinet’, indicating that the wine maker thought it was good enough to put in his cabinet instead of selling it.
Spätlese: These are late harvest wines but not necessarily at dessert wine level, and can be fermented to dryness, creating a full-bodied wine.
Auslese – these are select bunches of late harvest grapes, and there may even be some noble rot here. Whilst this can be a dry wine, Auslese is almost always sweet.
Beerenauslese: This means select berry harvest i.e. individual grapes are selected. These are usually noble rot affected grapes (hence the need to hand select each grape), and therefore often creates a rich, sweet dessert wine.
Eiswein: Germans have the Eiswein label, so you may know this style of wine as Ice Wine from other countries (such as Canada). The grapes here are naturally frozen on the vine, concentrating the sugars to an extreme level, making a delicious, smooth and complex dessert wine.
Trockenbeerenauslese: Here the ‘trocken’ refers to the grapes, not the wine. In this case we’ve still got selected berry harvest grapes, but the grapes have dried out slightly on the vine, creating extremely concentrated sugars. Coupled with noble rot, this will make extremely rich, syrupy wines.
We do hope you're now as tempted to try the delights of a good Riesling as we are. Tell us about your pairing ideas!
Stay salty af,
Anika & Fleurie
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