Sugar and acid, Riesling has bundles of both. Going right across the range of sweetness and acidity is both Riesling’s trump card and Achilles’ heel.
image: Ripe grapes of Riesling. Photographer: Tom Maack, Riesling grapes and leaves. Rheingau, Germany, October 2005. Source: Wikipedia.
If wine circles are to be believed, then those in the know revere Riesling above all the white grapes. It has the required sugars to either leave residual sweetness in the wine and remain low in alcohol, or after the impact of Botrytis, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botrytis_cinerea the noble rot, deliver high alcohol sweet wines, and also be able to deliver dry wines. Temper this with its mouth-watering acidity and its ability to produce balanced, fine white wines that then can be matured to improve them, and it’s easy to see its appeal. To the untutored, though, what to expect of a Riesling has seen its popularity waver. Compound this with the name being used, for a while, to refer to a group of lesser grapes; further confusion with Welschriesling and Riesling Italico not being Riesling (The Germans and Alsatians are keen for these varieties to adopt Rizling for these grapes); and its easy to see how this fairest of fine grapes has had mixed reactions.
The vines are resistant to frost, so make Riesling good for early winter pruning, and more importantly able to survive in regions that cannot support other varieties. The bunches are small and compact and are prone to coulure and botrytis. This vulnerability to botrytis and the plant’s resistance to frost actually give it the ability to enable the harvest for Eiswein, where the grapes are picked late in the year while actually frozen. The resulting juice that is extracted without the crystals of water being melted is super-concentrated and the resulting Eiswein is prized, and priced, as a supreme luxury drink.
Yields can be high and growth vigorous without undermining the quality. The grapes ripen late, so while vines have been lost from certain areas due to this, they have often been reinstated where warmer microclimates enable full ripening. Juice from under-ripe grapes produces a characterless wine, therefore a decline in vine numbers. Over the last half century this selective replanting has resulted in better Riesling wines.
Origins
In the Rheingau, Mosel and Baden regions, mentions of Rieslings date back as far as the middle ages. Confusion exists for exact dates due its similarity of spelling to the other native ‘Räuschling’ grape. By the middle of the fifteenth century it is recorded throughout the wine producing areas of south western Germany, then only slightly later in Alsace.
Territories
A strong candidate in the cooler northern European wine regions of Germany, Alsace, Luxembourg, Austria, Alto Adige in Italy, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Ukraine and then on into central Asia. Surprisingly, Riesling was the biggest white grape grown in Australia until Chardonnay took over very recently in 1990. The total hectares grown continues to increase, though, as new areas introduce the variety. Present in New Zealand and America, it is in Ontario, Canada and New York State, USA that production of Icewine has led to a surge in popularity again of Riesling.
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