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Wine Tasting Theme: Riesling
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Riesling comes in shapes and sizes. It is probably a good idea to make your selection fit one style of Riesling, for example dry, medium or sweet. Alternatively you could ask everyone to establish the residual sugar of the wine (call the winery or importer or check their web sites for that information) and then to taste the wines from driest to sweetest. Most winemakers or importers will be able to give you the sweetness level in grams per litre (g/l) of residual sugar. Here is my assessment of sweetness category based on g/l:
| Dry |
0-7.5g/l |
| Medium/dry |
7.6-20g/l |
| Medium |
20.1-30g/l |
| Medium/sweet |
30.1-50g/l |
| Sweet |
Over 50g/l |
| You could look at different regions style in New Zealand: |
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Hawke's Bay, Martinborough, Nelson, Marlborough, Canterbury and Otago.
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| Alternatively you could review different county styles: |
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New Zealand: My favourites include Dry River, Framingham, Felton Road, Corbans Private Bin, Pegasus Bay, Neudorf, Fromm, Winslow and Giesen).
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Australia: My favourite is Grossett but there are a number of good producers, particularly in the Eden Valley and Clare Valley. Try a good Tasmanian wine if you can find one.
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Germany: There are now a good range of German wines being bought into New Zealand by the Auckland companies Wine Direct, Glengarry and Caro's.
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France: Alsace produces some of the world's best Riesling. A number of brands are now being brought into the country although the quality varies considerably. Deiss, Hugel, Trimbach, Schoffitt and Domaine Schlumberger are reasonably available.
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Wine Age
Riesling is capable of ageing well. Try to include wines with some bottle age although these may be a little difficult to find. Winemakers might be able to sell you something from their wine library if you explain that that you need the wine for a tasting. Wine Direct stocks 10 year-old German wines at good prices.
Food Choices
Be adventurous. If you are matching the food with sweet wines try to make sure that the wines are slightly sweeter than the food (which will reduce the apparent sweetness in the wine. Try spicy foods.
Tasting Sheet
Don't forget to download my White Wine Tasting Sheet.
I also recommend that you use the Essential Wine Tasting Guide in conjunction with the tasting sheet.
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