The best estates belong to the VDP group, dedicated to making great dry Rheingau Riesling – although in warm years the Rheingau can also be the source of many excellent BA and TBA sweet wines.
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Riesling is also the classic grape of the Rheingau where it perhaps best reflects, in a steely, lemony, sometimes mineral-scented way, the differences between even neighbouring vineyards. This is the wine to drink while writing or reading it refreshes the palate and sharpens the brain (or at least that's what it feels like).Ī third of all Germany's Riesling grows in the Mosel but the Pfalz region also grows a substantial quantity, making much richer but no less entrancing wine which can often taste exotically fruity (and can reach as much as 13% alcohol if fermented out to dryness). Riesling from the Mosel and its even cooler tributaries the Saar and Ruwer is one of the wine world's most distinctive, least imitable wine styles: light, crisp, racy, refreshing as a mountain stream and somehow tasting of the slate which, by reradiating warmth overnight, helps ripen so many Riesling vines. This means that, whereas Müller-Thurgau will ripen just about anywhere here, Riesling stands a chance of ripening fully only on the most favoured sites, those tilted most firmly towards direct and reflected sunlight, which is where it is planted so that it stays on the vine well into autumn. In a cool climate such as that of the Mosel valley in northern Germany on the other hand, it is regarded as late ripening relative to the host of precocious varieties that were specially bred for these short summers. Relative to most other internationally known varieties, Riesling ripens quite early, so when planted in a hot climate its juice can be overripe and flabby long before any interesting flavours have developed in the grapes. I once presented a tasting in Frankfurt where we compared fine Rieslings with classed-growth red bordeaux of the same vintage and each pair of wines was maturing at almost exactly the same rate. The prospect of a 50-year-old Riesling can be an appetising one while the number of white burgundies worth ageing past their 15th birthday is extremely small. They can be quite austere in youth (which may be why so many wine drinkers are wary of them). A fine Riesling almost demands time in bottle. To me Riesling is great not just because it, like Pinot Noir for example, is so exceptionally good at expressing terroir, but also because it makes white wines that are so good at ageing. Riesling is a star and, as you may discern, one of my great wine heroes.
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Like top quality Chenin Blanc, but unlike Chardonnay, it performs best if fermented cool and bottled early without any malolactic fermentation or wood influence. It is generally light in alcohol, refreshingly high in fruity natural acidity (quite different from the harshness of added acid), has the ability to transmit the character of a place through its extract and unique aroma and, unlike Chardonnay, is capable of ageing for decades in bottle.
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Wine made from Riesling is quite unlike any other. And, it must be said, the Germans themselves have made some pretty awful Rieslings at the bottom end of the market that have done nothing for the reputation of their greatest asset. Acknowledged king of German vineyards, this variety happens to share a name with so many other unrelated grapes and wines such as Emerald Riesling, Riesling Italico, Laskirizling, Olaszrizling and Welschriesling. 'Reece-ling' must be the world's most misunderstood, and mispronounced, grape variety.