For The Love Of Port

We have a baked ham in the oven and my mom is coming to dinner. We have a bottle of bubbly for appetizers and a great German Riesling, a *** Auslesen as my mom enjoys siginficant RS.

Do you enjoy the grape? Any producer that you prefer?

We like Rieslings here, but we prefer the tarter varieties. What used to be QMP Kabinett (they recently changed the wine labeling laws in Germany, so it's something else now). To me a good Riesling tastes very much like a Granny Smith apple. We don't drink all that much Riesling any more, but when we do, we wonder why we don't drink more.

My favorite single grape on earth. Memorable delicious bottles from Hermann J Weimer, Standing Stone (both NY) Fritz Hagg, Loimer (German) Kuntz Bas, Weinbach (Alsace) and f.x. Pichler and Nigl (Austria) to name some not crazy obvious/common ones.

I mean, how many other grapes can be world class in dry, semi-dry, sweet, icewine and sparkling forms? Basically the only thing you can't do to it is oak it!

In my experience, if a German wine is offered at a party, it often will be the first one consumed, even if none of the participants can decipher the label.

I cannot think of a single bad bottle from the Saar region. When a 1971 Egon Muller Scharzhofberger Spatlese is still fresh in 1999, that's enough to hook anybody. Fritz Haag is great too.

While I don't drink heaps of white wine, when I drink it, it is more likely to be riesling than not. Bradley mentioned Weinbach and I'm of that fan too. I had glass of Saloman Pfaffenberg 07 at a degustation late last year which was also lovely. Some of the Dr Loosen rieslings have been pretty good for the price as well.
With the warm summer we've had in Melbourne this year, I've worked my way through a number of bottles of local stuff. It also helped that 2012 was a fantastic riesling vintage pretty much everywhere in the country, and riesling is way undervalued so I've been trying a lot young to assess which ones I should be putting down. The ones that have made it into the cellar so far are the 3 Grossets (Polish Hill, Watervale and Alea), the Oleary Walker Polish Hill, Jim Barry Lodge Hill - all from the Clare Valley and the Dandelion From the Eden Valley. I may add a few more too, as there are so many good ones about.

Over the past 2 or 3 years, I've noticed a lot more rieslings on the market with slightly higher RS too, so slightly sweeter rieslings seem to be back in vouge.

Love Riesling of all sorts including German. I probably have more Riesling in my cellar than any other variety. With European climate change, the German vinyards are ripening more these days so many producer's Auslese would be sweeter than the past, at least without significant bottle age. I think now a good high acid Spatlese would work very well.
In Germany, amongst others, love JJ Prum, Egon Muller, Karthauserhof in the MSR, Robert Weil and Leitz in the Rheingau, Gunderloch in the Rheinhessen, Muller-Catoir in the Pfalz, Donnhoff in the Nahe. In Alsace, love Trimbach and Weinbach. In Austria, love Prager, Hirtzberger, FX Pichler, Emmerich Knoll, Brundylmayer. In Australia, love Grosset and Mt Horrocks. I also still have quite a bit of old California late harvest Riesling. Navarro is still making nice ones.

Riesling fan over here! Can't name any particular favorite producers beyond the typical names lik JJ Prun and Dr. Loosen... I once tried a German Rieslings from the late 30's that had Nazi emblem on it. Kind of erie, wish I took a picture.

Love it when Riesling has nice crisp acidity to it. Problem is the bottles go down way too quick.

A local retailer had a magnum of Max Ferdinand Richter Wehlener Sonnenuhr Spatlese - gotta say, that was a very elegant bottle. Just couldn't bring myself to pay $100 for it though.