Riesling (Everything you need to know) | Grapes 101

Having a difficult time figuring out if your Riesling has sugar in it? Me too. With so many different styles, Riesling can be really hard to understand. Hi, I'm Master of Wine Christine Marsilio and Head Wine Educator for Wine Folly, and I'm here today to figure out what we need to know about Riesling. Riesling can come in many different styles, but I've picked this one today to dive into to understand more. We've got Künstler Hochheimer Hohle im Neuenburg from the Rheingau in Germany. Does it have sugar? Who knows? Let's dive into this wine and use it to better understand Riesling as a grape variety. We'll start in the homeland of Riesling, Germany. The main regions you'll find Riesling grown in in Germany are the Mosel, the Rheingau, and the Pfalz. The further south you go, the warmer it gets and the riper fruit flavors you will find in the wine. But Christine, how do we know if German Riesling is dry or sweet? Well, if you see the following on the label, you'll know that the wine is sweet. Eiswein, these are all very late harvested styles of Riesling. Late harvested grapes have higher levels of sugar in them, which means there's a much higher chance that the resulting wine will be sweet. Let's take a look at our German Riesling to find some clues about its sweetness level. As you can see, this wine is from the Rheingau, but that doesn't really tell us if it's sweet or dry. There are a couple of clues though on this bottle that will help us better understand this wine. First of all, you can look for the word trocken, which means dry in German. And you can also check out the alcohol level. If it's above 12%, there's a very good chance that that wine will be dry. If I spin this bottle around, we can see on the back that it does indeed say trocken, and the alcohol level is 12.5%. So this wine is definitely going to be dry. Let's taste it to double check. Let's give this a smell to see what Riesling smells like. Wow, it's really aromatic with notes of jasmine, white peach, lemon zest, and wet slate. Pretty much what you would expect from a pretty cool climate wine. It's even starting to develop a petrol or kerosene aroma, which is the archetypal aged aroma of Riesling. Okay, let's give it a taste to find out if it is dry. Yep, that is bone dry. Can't taste even a little bit of sugar there. And that's also because the acidity is really, really high. Very racy, laser sharp, which is typical of Riesling, the grape variety. This also has a really long kind of mineral finish, which is really typical of a very high quality wine. Whilst Germany is really the homeland of Riesling, you can also find it in Alsace, France, where they make mostly dry Riesling with intense peach and red apple flavors. The Clare and Eden Valleys in Australia make mostly dry Riesling with intense aromas of lime, lemon, and petrol. And Washington State in the US, where Rieslings range from dry to sweet with delicate aromas of jasmine and apricot. So what does good Riesling actually cost? And what should you pair it with? Truly exceptional Riesling is actually a bargain compared to many other grape varieties. If you look to spend around $20 in any of the regions that we mentioned, you're probably going to find something that's really quite good and age worthy. For some of the finer and rarer wines though, you can expect to spend upwards of 10 times that for some of the best wines in the world. Riesling is a great match for many foods because of its really high level of acidity. Because it's so aromatic, it can handle intense flavors like lemongrass, ginger, clove, and even Sichuan peppercorns. Try a Thai green curry or really stinky cheese like Epoisse to go with it. For the sweeter versions, I love pairing it with an apple tart. If you want to learn more about Riesling, check out the link below to subscribe to winefolly.com. And if you want more awesome video content, make sure you like and subscribe so you don't miss any of our videos. Cheers!