About Riesling

Riesling vs Chardonnay

Riesling will never be as popular as Chardonnay. For that, the grape is too acidic. It is in many ways the opposite of Chardonnay.

Good Riesling is a fresh and sour wine with medium fullness, moderate alcohol content, and delicate aromas from the grape. No new oak barrels are needed here.

To appreciate Riesling, one must build up some tolerance for acid. Riesling has a much more exciting aroma profile than Chardonnay, and it also has great elegance and finesse. The best Rieslingene also takes the taste of the soil and exciting flavor combinations are often the result.

Regions

The best Riesling wines come from Germany, Alsace, Austria, Italy, Australia, and New Zealand.

North of Germany (Mosel, Nahe), the wines are light and floral, with extreme finesse. They are usually made semi-dry or sweeter.

Further south, the wines will get bigger fullness, and dry editions are more common. Some of the best wines for food come from Rheingau, Palatinate, Austria, and perhaps especially Alsace.

A German Riesling will have a lighter style and a higher acid level an edition from Alsace that has more weight and fullness. Because of the taste equilibrium, a quiet Riesling with a few grams of residual sugar and high acid content can still be considered as dry and comfortable as a dry Riesling from Alsace with more alcohol.

When Riesling is supposed to accompany food, it should be slightly stored. The ripening tones down the otherwise very fresh acid and the wine is rounded off.

Mosel

The German Mosel valley is one of the classic cultivation areas for Riesling.

The grape's demand for a cool climate is particularly well satisfied in this part of Germany, where conditions are quite extreme for wine production.

From the Mosel valley come some of the best wines made by Riesling.

Fake Riesling

The most common abusers of the Riesling name are:

• Italico Riesling
• Welshriesling
• Laski Riesling
• Emerald Riesling.

These have nothing to do with the great German Riesling. All of these grapes make significantly simpler wines than real Riesling.