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By Manos Angelakis
At the beginning of 2008, Riesling producers from around the world joined a venture to increase the public’s awareness and understanding of this very special grape.
At the New York City’s Riesling Fellowship show, there were producers from Austria, Alsace, Australia, The Niagara Peninsula in Canada, Germany’s Nahe, Pfalz, Rheingau, the Mosel and Rheinhessen, New Zealand, South Africa., and from the US, California, Michigan, Oregon, Washington State, New York’s Finger Lakes and Long Island’s North Fork.
Some of the best German wineries were present, including St. Urbans-Hof, Markus Molitor, S. A. Prüm, Dr. Loosen, Josef Leitz, Gunderloch, Schlossgut Diel, Schloss Reinhartshausen, Schmitt Söhne, Schloss Johannisberg, and Selbach-Oster, whose owner and winemaker Johannes Selbach was there, personally showing some of his better wines.
Wines of Alsace had its own table where Abbes Domain Schlumberger, Domain Zind Humbrecht, Trimbach, Lucien Albrecht, Hugel et Fils and Willm showed their mostly dry and very dry Rieslings.
Cave Spring Cellars from Canada showed estate bottled wines, mostly from the exceptional 2007 vintage, but also a sample from the 2003 and one from the 2000 vintage. While their dry wines were excellent, what caught my attention was the 2007 Select Late Harvest Indian Summer. This is a dessert wine, sweet but with enough acidity, with a nose redolent of honeysuckle, jasmine, and mastic. To my taste, it was the best dessert wine shown in the event.
The Finger Lakes Wine Allience, from Upstate New York showed mostly dry Rieslings from such illustrious wineries as Red Newt, Glenora, Dr. Konstantin Frank, Herron Hill, Prejean and Sheldrake Point. The last, was the only dessert wine, a 2006 Ice Wine that was beautifully balanced, with white flowers and white peaches on the nose.
The German wineries were showing the full range of the Riesling’s capabilities, from very dry and dry, to Trockenbeerenauslese and Ice wine. Especially beautiful were the 2007 Auslese Nackenheim Rothenberg from Gunderloch, made from 100% botrytis affected grapes, the Leitz 2007 Riesling Dragonstone, a light, off-dry charmer, and from the same winery the 2006 Trockenbeerenauslese that was made by blending the best hand-picked over-ripe grapes of the Leitz vineyards. S. A. Prüm showed only one of its 2007 graded wines, the Kabinett from their segment of the famous Wehlener Sonnenuhr (the sundial of the Wehlen village) vineyard. The wines I liked the most from the Selbach-Oster winery were the 2007 Kabinett Halbtrocken from the Zeltinger Himmelreich vineyard, and the 2005 Beerenauslese Zeltinger Schlossberg. I was very excited by the St. Urbans-Hof, 2007 Spätlese Piesporter Goldtöpfchen. Dependably excellent was the 2006 Riesling QbA from Schloss Johannisberg, an almost dry wine from the famous Johannisberg vineyard.
Finally, from Long Island’s North Fork I tasted and liked amongst the different offerings the 2007 Late Harvest Riesling of Paumanok vineyards, a wine that could compete on an equal footing with the best German late harvest wines and, from the well-known winemaker Roman Roth under his own label, “The Grapes of Roth” a dry 2007 Riesling that was a bit shy on the nose but had the proper palate and acidity to be very food-friendly.
There were many wines that I did not have a chance to taste, as the tasting time was very short, only two hours, for the number of very good wines that were presented.
It was a very interesting arrangement as it afforded us, for the first time, to compare side-by-side the styles and philosophies of different winemakers from disparate parts of the world, all using a single grape variety, Riesling.
And a great time was had by all.
© December 2008 LuxuryWeb Magazine. All rights reserved.
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