Throughout history, Riesling has been revered for its pure fruit flavors and vibrant acidity, it’s astonishing diversity of styles, versatility with food, and its ability to age for decades. It is at once both delicate and intense; crisp and juicy; floral and mineral; refreshing and complex; transparent and dense.
The best Rieslings are pure fruit, vinified as simply as possible to reveal the essence of the vineyard. Typical fruit flavors in a cool-climate Riesling can range from citrus and green apple to peach, apricot, mango and guava. Rieslings often have a little bit of everything, drenching your palate with layers and layers of fruity delight before finishing with enlivening acidity.
So, why don’t you like them?
What? They are too sweet for you?
Yes, some Rieslings are sweet. Most are not. But, even the sweetest of Rieslings have balancing acidity, so the flavors, rather than cloying, are crisp and precise. The grape is remarkable in that, as it ripens (and sugar levels rise), acidity levels remain high. All other grapes, as they ripen, lose acidity, sometimes allowing the sweet fruit to overwhelm everything else. (Yeah, I’m talking about you, Zinfandel).
Your friend told you that ALL Rieslings are sweet and he knows because he’s a wine expert?
I’m sorry, but your friend is not a wine expert. Again, most Rieslings are not sweet. He’s likely confused because in cool climate grape growing areas (such as Germany), ripeness is prized because it doesn’t happen regularly. Riper grapes have more sugar, so in years that the weather is temperate enough to allow for later picking, many producers choose to do so, allowing them to make some wines that are sweet. But, since picking later is potentially risky (rain or hail, or an early frost, or birds) no reputable winery will pick all their grapes late and only make sweet wines.
Yes, some wineries do set out to make sweet Rieslings exclusively. However, the norm in countries like France, Italy, Austria, New Zealand and Australia is to make dry Rieslings. And dry Rieslings are exciting! Dry Rieslings have rich fruit flavors and zinging acidity, making them reminiscent of a perfect glass of lemonade, one that has enough sweetness to make it delicious and enough acidity to make it thirst quenching.
And why the knock on sweet wines, anyway? California is known for its sweet wines, especially coming from warm areas like Napa Valley. There, ripeness is prized as well, and the practice is to pick grapes for wines like Chardonnay and Cabernet as late as possible, allow for some sugar to remain after fermentation, and then to age in new oak barrels, which adds vanillin and caramel flavors. Those wines are sweet, with more sugar than most Rieslings, and less balancing acidity. People (and wine critics) love those sweet wines!
If I put red dye in a Riesling and served it a room temperature, your friend, the wine expert, would identify it as one of the full and rich wines that he thinks are great. How do I know? Because I’ve done that, and watched (with delight, I confess) the the embarrassment of the wine bigots who judge wines by their color, temperature and expectation of their taste.
Rieslings are remarkably versatile. There are thick, robust Rieslings. Light and crisp Rieslings. Fresh and fruity Rieslings. Understated and muted. Big and bold. Some are even sweet. Some Rieslings are even dull and one-dimensional.
Every place in the world makes bad wine. No one place or grape has a monopoly on that. But a bad wine, whether dry or sweet; over-oaked or harshly acidic; picked early or late, is not the fault of the grape. It’s the fault of the human being who planted the grape, or who picked the grape or who made the wine. The world is awash with bad Cabernet Sauvignon, yes, some because they are too sweet. Yet, we still pretend that Cabernet is the Wine of Kings (actually, most of the kings were gone by the time Cabernet was born).
A Riesling lover prizes diversity above all, because, unlike Cabernet, Rieslings can shock and challenge, surprise and amaze. But, above all, they taste really, really good. Even when sweet. Especially when sweet. And also, when dry.