Riesling’s Wondrous Character
Riesling is a very hardy grape variety that thrives in cool climates and relatively poor soils. The grape requires a long growing season to ripen properly. In warmer climates, Riesling can lose its acid backbone, which is a main characteristic that helps make the wine bright, complex and balanced. Riesling wines generally do not respond well to newish, small oak barrels, preferring to be vinified and aged in stainless steel or larger neutral wood containers.
Riesling is a very aromatic and expressive grape variety, offering impressions of fresh flowers like honeysuckle and jasmine. Riesling’s aromas and flavors are often compared to orchard fruits like apple, peach, apricot (the apricot aroma is often a characteristic of the wonderful “noble rot”) and even the tropical-scented lychee or guava. Riesling wines are often described as tasting clean, racy and bright. Aged Riesling can take on more complex aromas which, in high quality wines, can include an aromatic expression of petrol, diesel or linalool.
Riesling’s compact bunches and small berries make it prone to rot (some of which is beneficial and necessary to make certain styles of wine). Noble rot (Botrytis cinerea) dehydrates ripe grapes, concentrating them to a point where they are capable of producing very memorable, rich, long-lived dessert wines.
June 23rd, 2008 at 5:41 pm
Very cool site.
May 31st, 2009 at 1:04 am
Tons of information…thanks!
August 20th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
Eastern Washington certainly isn’t a “cool climate.” How do you deal with that, and what effect does it have on the grapes (say, vs. a cooler climate like Oregon)?
August 30th, 2009 at 10:39 am
Cool climate is a bit of an albatros word. Eastern Washington has so many climates and can have such cool nights that its heat temperature summation is not that crazy. That being said it is warmer than the Willamette Valley (but not the Rogue!) for sure and one should not expect a low sugar level in our grapes. The high sugar does not come always with low acid, for example I pick regularly the Sweet Riesling grapes in mid September with high acid (0.8) and 21 Brix. In Oregon we cannot achieve that ripeness level before late October by which time the grapes might show some serious rot. In the vineyard we build tall big canopies to protect the grapes from the sun, lots of shading. We also carry sometime a bit more crop to avoid to fast ripening. All in all things rebalance themselves very well.
September 23rd, 2009 at 6:15 pm
I served some of the dry reisling to my card group. We all loved it!!!!!!!!! Now I am unable to find it, although I haven’t looked in some of the package wine/liquor stores. I bought it at a large supermarket in town.
December 21st, 2009 at 2:21 pm
Cheryl,
Thank you for the note. Gee, you can always get it from the website (free shipping on 6 bottles or more). Where are you located? I might be able to recommend a store in your region (like Cost Plus).
Nicolas