Great White

Learning to love the versatile, quaffable Riesling.

by Peter Burwasser

GOLDEN HARVEST: Crew members work the grape fields at a Dr. Loosen slate-soil vineyard in Germany's Mosel Valley. : dr. loosen (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

Call it the Riesling conundrum. Here is a varietal that has been repeatedly praised by connoisseurs as one of the most remarkable white wines on earth. It comes from a centuries-old vaunted tradition. It's extraordinarily food-friendly, delicate enough for fowl and fish, but with enough body and rich structure to match with spicy Asian cuisine and roasted meat. And it is, relative to French and California wine of comparable quality, reasonably priced, perhaps even a bargain. So why isn't Riesling more popular in the United States?

It probably comes down to naive or indifferent business practices, as much as anything else. If the German wine industry marketed its product with the same smarts and panache that Mercedes-Benz and Audi use to peddle cars, we'd all be drinking a lot more Riesling. For years, German wine has been associated with, in the popular imagination, Blue Nun and other frutti-tutti concoctions designed to appeal to a mass market. And so for the American wine consumer with even a modicum of sophistication, German wine is perceived as sweet and light, the antithesis of the dry, complex dinner wines that are generally promoted as the ideal.

It's true that Riesling is made with more residual sugar than the high-end wines of France and Italy, but there is a vital reason for this, and it captures the very essence of Riesling's greatness. In Germany, the Riesling grape is grown at the extreme of the climate range considered suitable for wine, with vineyards straddling the 50th parallel. The fruit is especially hearty, with a high level of acidity, but does not ripen to the degree that grapes in warmer locales do. As a result, Riesling retains acidity as well as unfermented sugar. In the mouth, the sugar gives the wine weight and complexity, but the acid foils the possibility of cloying sweetness.

The climate challenges of the banks of the Rhine River and its tributaries have also led to a complex system of quality grading, which is based on grape ripeness, rather than location. Wines made from grapes picked at the normal time are designated Kabinett. Later harvested, riper grapes make Spätlese wines, and the classifying continues out to six categories, ending with Trockenbeerenauslese, a rare wine that is made with hand-picked grapes that have shriveled like raisins. Each successive category tends to be richer, sweeter and lower in alcohol content.

But there is an added level of classification. Riesling can also be made in a drier manner, which has shown considerable appeal to both younger German drinkers as well as Americans who are more accustomed to dry white wine. These are released as trocken (dry) or halbtrocken (half dry). Thus, it is possible to have a trocken Spätlese that is not as sweet as a Kabinett, even though the fruit in the Spätlese must be, by law, riper. Yes, it's confusing, and no doubt off-putting for newcomers to German wine. There may be no other grape on the planet used for such a variety of wine styles.

For our tasting, we have chosen traditional German Rieslings — that is, neither trocken nor halbtrocken, and only Kabinett and Spätlese. There are good wines made with Riesling grapes outside of Germany, notably, just over the border in Alsace, but elsewhere, caveat emptor. American Rieslings are very uneven, and with German Riesling so well priced, it makes sense to go for the real deal. In order of preference:

Dr. Loosen '05 Erdener Treppchen Kabinett ($18)
Light, but bracing, with a touch of effervescence. Apricots, cloves and pears on the nose. Vivacious, even brilliant in the mouth.

Dr. Fischer '04 Ockfener Bockstein Kabinett ($17.50)
A delightful, classically balanced Riesling, with minerals and citrus (including grapefruit) mixing it up with concentrated dried fruit flavors.

Kruger-Rumpf '05 Kabinett ($15)
More baby bubbles, reminiscent of a good dry champagne. Plenty of subtle ripe fruit tones, as well as a hint of spice. A bit high in alcohol for Riesling, at 10 percent.

Noble House '05 ($12)
A huge, flowery nose laced with cinnamon. Like ginger ale, in a good way, for one taster. But another called this one too sweet and lacking in character.

Thielen '03 Merler Fettgarten Spätlese ($17)
This one hails from the superb collection of Rieslings at Moore Brothers, in Pennsauken. Slate and smoke on the nose, with an almost chardonnay-like grassiness for one taster. One of only two wines in the bunch to hit double-digit (11 percent) alcohol levels.

Graff '05 Spätlese ($11)
A mixed reaction to this product from one of the larger German winemakers. The balance was praised as a nice mix of sweet and sour, minerals, apples and pears. For the host, an unfortunate flabbiness of structure.

Schmitt Söhne '05 ($10)
More sugar than spice. Formaldehyde on the nose. In a word, insubstantial, which is inexcusable for Riesling.

(p_burwasser@citypaper.net)