Riesling

Ingredients

Fruit

• 1tonne hand-picked Riesling from steep Devonian slate slopes of the Mosel or Rheingau, at 75–95 Oechsle
• Botrytis-affected berries, picked separately, for the sweet Prädikat wines
• 20–40 mgper litre sulphur dioxide, added at the press

Cellar

• Stainless steel tanks, or traditional 1,000-litre oak Fuder casks
• Ambient cellar yeast, or a neutral cool-ferment strain

To serve

• Tall, slightly tapered white wine glasses
• Riesling is served at 8–10 C

Directions

1. Harvest by hand in October and November. The slopes reach 60 degrees, so every basket is carried or winched down; pickers go through the same row several times, taking only the ripeness they want.
2. Sort on a table, separating clean berries for dry wines from shrivelled botrytis berries destined for Beerenauslese and Trockenbeerenauslese.
3. Press whole bunches slowly and gently in a pneumatic press over 2–3 hours, keeping only the free-run and light-pressure juice, so the must stays low in phenolics.
4. Settle the cloudy must cold at 8°C (45°F) for 12–24 hours and rack the clear juice off the solids.
5. Ferment cool at 15–18°C (60–65°F), in steel for precision or in old Fuder casks for texture. Spontaneous ferments can crawl on for months.
6. Decide the style by when you stop: chill and rack off the yeast to leave residual sugar, or let it run dry to 11–12 g per litre alcohol with piercing acidity.
7. Rest the wine on its fine lees over winter; the cold Mosel cellar drops the tartrates out naturally and blocks the malolactic fermentation that would soften the acid.
8. Rack, lightly filter and bottle in spring, usually under screwcap or a long cork; good Riesling is bottled early and matures in glass, not in wood.
9. Serve at 8–10 C in a tall glass. Kabinett with smoked trout or Thai food, dry Grosses Gewächs with roast poultry, Auslese with blue cheese, Eiswein alone.

Technique

• The Prädikat ladder is measured by must weight at harvest, not by sweetness in the bottle: Kabinett, Spätlese, Auslese, Beerenauslese, Eiswein and Trockenbeerenauslese, with trocken meaning fermented dry.
• Slate soil, cool nights and a long hanging season give the grape its combination of low alcohol, high acidity and intense aroma. That acid is why a great Riesling can age 30 years and more.
• The kerosene or petrol note in mature Riesling comes from TDN, a compound that develops with sun exposure and bottle age. Germans see it as a marker of maturity, not a fault.
• Eiswein grapes must freeze on the vine at minus 7°C (19°F) or below and be pressed while frozen, so the ice stays behind and only concentrated syrup runs out.

Substitutions

• Cannot find German Riesling: Alsace Riesling is drier and fuller, Austrian Riesling from the Wachau is drier and more mineral, Clare Valley is bone dry and lime-driven.
• For a comparable off-dry German white try a Mosel Weissburgunder or a Rheinhessen Silvaner, though neither has Riesling’s acid backbone.

Variations

• Mosel Kabinett, light, off-dry, often under 9 per cent alcohol.
• Rheingau Grosses Gewächs, dry and powerful from a single top vineyard.
• Trockenbeerenauslese, botrytised nectar picked berry by berry, and Eiswein, pressed from frozen fruit.

History

First documented in a 1435 cellar inventory of Count Katzenelnbogen at Rüsselsheim; Germany grows more Riesling than any other country.

Frequently asked questions

What is Riesling?

Riesling is a wine & spirit from Germany: aromatic white wine from slate slopes, dry to intensely sweet. First documented in a 1435 cellar inventory of Count Katzenelnbogen at Rüsselsheim; Germany grows more Riesling than any other country.

How long does Riesling take to make?

Riesling takes 4 hr at harvest of preparation and 4–8 months in cellar of cooking. The recipe makes one 750 ml bottle serves 4–6. It is rated hard to make.

What can I substitute in Riesling?

Yes, within limits. Cannot find German Riesling: Alsace Riesling is drier and fuller, Austrian Riesling from the Wachau is drier and more mineral, Clare Valley is bone dry and lime-driven. For a comparable off-dry German white try a Mosel Weissburgunder or a Rheinhessen Silvaner, though neither has Riesling’s acid backbone.

What is the most important thing to get right in Riesling?

Press whole bunches slowly and gently in a pneumatic press over 2–3 hours, keeping only the free-run and light-pressure juice, so the must stays low in phenolics.