Smaragd– (it’s the common name of the Emerald Lizard which lives in the area) is the denomination of the best…Wachau wines with an alcohol content of more than 12.5%

Federspiel– (name comes from falconry…the device used to lure the prey back to the glove…like they used at the Jet’s game yesterday) Wines with alcohol level between 11.5% and 12.5%

Steinfeder–(name comes from the local name of Steinfedergras, a feather grass that grows in the immediate proximity of the vines on the terraces..These wines of less than 11.5% alcohol are feather light…ergo the name.

(BTW, are you a Noo Yawkah, a Brit from York or a lover of Latin?)

I like Theise, but this is pretty cheap of him. The people who love Riesling best tend to be the people he accuses of failing to lobby strongly enough for them: sommeliers, wine retailers, wine writers, people who are “in the business.” One attribute shared by these folk is that they tend not to make very much money compared to many other professions. For alot of us, buying multiple bottles of Riesling (or any wine) at the $30+ price point is a fairly significant investment and not something we can do frequently. If Theise wants to get his undies in a bundle about this, he should pick on people who actually have money to burn on wine: stockbrokers, doctors, investment bankers, etc. Just because we “in the biz” can’t afford to buy $30+ wine by the case doesn’t mean wouldn’t “like” to purchase it, and don’t do so when we can. I can’t remember the last time I bought a $30 Cabernet Sauvignon; I bought three bottles of Keller 07 von der fels @ $36 just last week.

Part of the blame for this must lie in a strange reluctance of producers, particularly in Alsace and New Zealand to label the degree of perceptible dryness/sweetness; I sometimes have unpleasant surprises even from my own cellar in pairing such Rieslings with food. They must lose a lot of sales because of this blurriness. Some producers like Zind Humbrecht have realized the problem but indicate the dryness/sweetness by numerals which themselves need decoding. Others, like Trimbach, have a dry house style but the consumer has to know that.

Most German wines which are exported have some residual sugar but also balancing acidity which means that they are lively and far from cloying. The official German labelling system, once learned, is about the most informative and explicit in the world, so that there should be no surprises, were it not for the annoying tendency in recent times to declassify wines meeting the higher (sweeter) criteria, e.g. Auslese, into lower (less sweet) categories, e.g. Kabinett. Additionally the German definition of “trocken” (=dry) can be criticised for allowing too much Residual Sugar (9g) but it also requires compensating acidity. A very important fly in the ointment is that many German producers opt out of the official system and have their private systems, e.g. Grosses Gewächs, etc. with no dryness/sweetness indicator; one is supposed to know and perhaps Germans, to whom most of these are sold, do know?

Austrian and Australian Rieslings are mostly reliably dry. The higher grades of the former, e.g. Smaragd, are often quite high in alcohol which can give rise to perception of sweetness by some. I am not sure where US Riesling fits into this picture.

It is amuses me somewhat that the “average” consumer, presumably a Chardonnay lover, complains about sweetness in Riesling. It is my own perception that most Chardonnay, with the exception of real Chablis, is distinctly sweet.

Thank you for bringing Terry’s opinion to the blog. He is great to have around. I would recommend to any Riesling Geek to download his yearly catalog online on the Skurnik website.

Riesling is the fastest growing varietal in the US among the top ten varietals. I think the appreciation for those wines is growing. I wish this would come more from restaurants than from retailers and that they would consider a balanced mix of foreign and domestic (bit self promoting here of course).

By the way, I’ll be in NYC in March if you want to chat about domestic Rieslings.

Best,

Nicolas

At the time I had to buy all my Rieslings, for personal consumption, from distributors “under the table”. I couldn’t bring more than one or two decent Rieslings into the stores, because they wouldn’t sell. People who “liked” Riesling came in looking for blue bottles. I had very little success hand-selling good Riesling to these people. I had more success selling the better Rieslings to people interested in other quality whites.

I agree with Terry that more people should be interested in Riesling as a food-friendly wine, and stop being scared of a little residual sugar! You know you like sweets!

When I teach wine classes I get the bulk of students saying it is sweet. Next we learn the tasting process and then they realize it is more sour and balanced.

I would say educating the consumers on how good German Riesling is will be the key to more sales.

I am glad to see the rise of grower champagne, but I long for the day when champagne really has anything at all to do with the proletariat. I laugh at the idea that everyman drinks at the $30 a bottle and up level and I think we all know that this is ridiculous. Cava is the sparkling wine the people can afford if they know enough to buy it, and if not they drink inferior american bubbles at twice the price. I complain about it all the time here, but even as much as I spend on wine I just have a hard time drinking champagne more than maybe once a month because the cost is too high for what you get I think. I’d rather drink a cava AND follow it with a great wine from somewhere else, or I’d rather drink three bottles of muscadet, or two of good riesling, so maybe Terry wins either way.

In any case, don’t mean to be too negative, because I really do enjoy most everything I have tried from Terry’s portfolio and his is a name that, when in doubt, I trust on the back label of a bottle as a sign to swing away. Maybe I should have led with that!