AT THE SOURCE
How many of you enjoyed a nice Riesling with your Easter
dinner? It’s a food-friendly, moderately
priced wine and readily available in your local Fine Wine and Good Spirits
stores. In May, our tasting will be
focused on the wines of Dr. Konstantin Frank.
When you think of Finger Lakes wine, most often Riesling comes to
mind. A fifth of all of the wine grapes
planted in Germany are Riesling, so to talk about Riesling, you have to start
with Germany. So, we thought that we’d
give you a bit of background on this particular grape.
There’s a lot of Riesling planted in Germany, but there's a
lot to like. Riesling can taste like peach or apricot, with lime-like
tartness. It's also incredibly aromatic, with jasmine and honeysuckle. Even though
the scientific evidence is lacking, if you drink a bottle from grapes grown on
blue or red slate, you'll swear you can taste through the fruit flavors to the
minerals at the wine's core.
If Riesling grapes stay on the vine long enough to be
affected by botrytis, called 'noble rot', then the wines will take on flavors
of ginger and honey. You won't find much German Riesling aged in oak barrels. Winemakers prefer to emphasize the freshness
of the grape rather than weigh it down with oak. Riesling also ages well. Bottles
taste amazing 10, 20, even 30 years after the vintage.
DON'T FEAR THE SUGAR
Not all German Rieslings are sweet, but you shouldn't avoid
a Riesling with a little residual sugar. Riesling grapes are naturally very
high in acid, and the cool, northern climate of Germany means this acid stays
in the grapes even into the fall harvest season. So winemakers let the
fermentation stop before the wine is completely dry, retaining a little
sweetness in order to balance the wine.
Think of it like this: Have you ever made fresh lemonade? If
you taste it and it's too tart, you add some sugar until the flavor is right:
plenty tart, with just enough sweetness to soften the edge a little.
That bit of sweetness also makes these Rieslings friendly at
the dinner table. Sugar will help moderate spice. Try an off-dry German
Riesling with Indian or Thai food. Add something fatty and you'll discover that
acidity, sweetness, and richness are great together.
THE PRÄDIKAT SYSTEM
German wine labels can be a bit intimidating. (So many umlauts!)
But there's useful information on those labels, so it's worth getting to know a
few terms.
Like wine anywhere, Germany's highest quality bottlings come
from a specific place. In Germany, that starts with table wine from anywhere in
the country. That's Deutscher Wein. Then
there's Landwein, which is from broad geographic areas within the country, a
bit like Vin de Pays in France or Indicazione Geografica Tipica in Italy.
Above those two, there are two categories: Qualitätswein
bestimmter Anbaugebiete (Quality wine from a certain wine region) and
Prädikatswein, which will also have the specific region listed. Prädikatswein
is the highest level for wine classification and must be labeled by Prädikat. A
note on the bottle tells you about the ripeness level of the grapes before they
were made into wine. As the grapes get riper, they pack in more sugar and more
intensity of flavor.
The levels in the Prädikat system can give you an idea of
how sweet the wine will be. The more ripe the grapes are, the more sugar they
have before fermentation, and the more likely there will be some sugar left
over when the fermentation stops. This leftover sugar is called 'residual
sugar'.
(Prädikat isn't a perfect predictor of sweetness, though.
More on the exceptions later.)
Kabinett is the least ripe and wines in this category are
usually light and fresh. Grapes for Spätlese wines were left on the vine a
little longer to get more sugar, and the resulting wine is likely to be more
powerful and rich, plus sweeter than the Kabinett. Auslese wines are even sweeter,
and are made from riper grapes than Spätlese. These wines age very well, though
they're also excellent accompaniments to a cheese plate.
For a sweet wine for after dinner look for Beerenauslese or
Trockenbeerenauslese. Those are the sweet wines. Trocken means 'dry,' but in Trockenbeerenauslese,
the term refers to the dried berries on the vine rather than the wine. These
sweet wines are made with late-harvest grapes attacked by botrytis or 'noble
rot', the same fungus that makes the renowned wines of Sauternes.
Finally, grapes for Eiswein (Ice wine) are picked and
pressed in winter when they are frozen. Freezing concentrates the sweet grape
juice, and these wines tend to be the sweetest, and most expensive.
HOW DO YOU KNOW HOW SWEET THE WINE IS?
If you’re at the Fine Wine and Good Spirits store, and
staring at the wall of German Riesling, how do you know if you are getting
something bone dry, off-dry, or made for dessert?
It would be nice if it could be as simple as always paying
attention to the ripeness levels noted by the Prädikat categories above. But
sometimes winemakers will decide to take a wine made from Spätlese-level ripe
grapes and call it a Kabinett.
Here's a handy trick. Look at the alcohol percentage. The
lower the alcohol, the sweeter the wine will be. This is because not all the
sugar has been converted to alcohol through fermentation. Is the ABV 8%? Then
it's going to be on the sweeter side. Is the alcohol at 13%? That should be
pretty dry.
There are a couple more German words that are worth learning
to help you determine sweetness.
If you see Trocken on the label that means it's dry. (This
is true even if there's also a Spätlese on the bottle. that term refers to
ripeness, and the Trocken is the final word on dryness.)
Halbtrocken is off-dry. These are perfect for that Thai or
Indian dinner. If you see Selection on the bottle, that wine will be dry (and
sourced from a single vineyard) while a wine labeled Classic is off-dry, like
Halbtrocken.
A wine labeled with 'GG' will also be dry. This is short for
Grosses Gewächs ("Great Growth"). This means that grapes from a very
good vineyard site were used to make a dry wine. These great sites are a bit
like a 'Grand Cru' vineyards in Burgundy. These wines will generally be more
expensive than bottles labeled 'Trocken' or 'Selection,' but will also be
powerful and complex.
If you’re still not sure if a wine is dry or sweet? The
International Riesling Foundation (yes, such a thing exists) has created a
scale of sweetness that you might see on the back of Riesling bottles.
MORE LABEL HINTS
Many German wine bottles will bear a picture of an eagle (adler)
with a cluster of grapes, indicating membership in the Verband Deutscher
Prädikatsweingüter (Association of German Prädikat Wineries), abbreviated as
the VDP. This organization was formed to promote quality wine in Germany by
requiring its members to adhere to strict guidelines. Plenty of great producers
have chosen to opt out of VDP membership, though.
There's another thing to look for when you're scanning
labels that I learned at our most recent tasting. Joe and Ruth Barsotti
suggested that, if you're not familiar with the winemaker, check the back of
the bottle to find out who imported the wine. There are many great importers who
have all built impressive portfolios of some of the most renowned estates in
Germany.
SINGLE VINEYARDS
It’s difficult to ripen grapes in the cool climate of
Germany, but generations of winemakers (there have been vines planted in
Germany since Roman times) have found spots for remarkable vineyards. Some of
the best sites are along rivers, such as the Mosel and the Rhine, because the
steep south-facing slopes get maximum sun.
Single vineyards appear on German wine labels with the name
of the town ending in 'er' preceding the vineyard name. Ürziger Würzgarten is
the Würzgarten vineyard in the town of Ürzig, for example. Many winemakers make
wines from each vineyard. Each producer owns just a segment of the vineyard,
and may farm his parcel of vines alongside a dozen neighbors.
Check the blog often for more tips, news, and notices
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