How German Wine Found Its Sweet Spot

Interesting read

Interesting. Thanks.

Goldtröpfchen, ja!

Interesting article.

I just had some 2018 Schloss Lieser Goldtröpfchen Spat last weekend and it was really great. Maybe I’ll open another bottle this weekend after reading this nice article.

That was very nice. Not exactly educational in any meaningful way, but a pleasant, engaging read.

My only beef with Rieslings are that trocken doesn’t actually always mean it’s dry. Pisses me off. If they could just fix that one little thing, I think we’d forgive them their overly complex classifications. Get it straight, Germany/Alsace: I want bone dry Rieslings. That means RS below 0.5g/l. OK?

What? No.

Universally everywhere in Europe “dry” means RS below 4 g/l by law and this seems to be the case virtually everywhere else - I haven’t seen a single producer calling their wines “medium-dry” if the wine is 5 g/l in residual sugar. However, basically all the countries allow RS to be 2 g/l above the acidity up to 10 g/l, so the wine is technically dry if it has up to 9 g/l RS as long as the acidity is above 7.0 g/l. That’s why a “Trocken” can have up residual up to 9,9 g/l. And most German Rieslings taste dry even at 10 g/l, if the acidity is in balance with the sugar. OTOH, if a German Riesling is below 0.5 g/l RS, it often tends to taste rather austere and unbalanced, especially if it comes from Mosel or Rheingau. Of course there are numerous examples to point the contrary, but still, based on my my experiences, this seems to be the case as a larger trend. And I’m a person who enjoys dry wines.

The bigger problem is with Alsace, where they don’t have any indications of sweetness - there a Riesling can be bone-dry or medium-sweet and the label says not a single word about it. I wouldn’t call that overly complex, but instead too lax. Fortunately the wines tend to have their (somewhat vague) numerical sweetness value of 1-7 in the back label nowadays.

I suppose that’s my problem then. If RS can be labeled as dry and still have 4g/l or more, then we have a fundamental problem. That is crazy sweet. We need a new official classification, Bone Dry in that case. Bone Dry: less than 1g/l.

Crazy sweet? An oft-cited number is that a normal human tongue can’t reliably detect a difference of 3 g/l residual sugar in a wine. Furthermore, most dry red and white wines hover in the range of 1-4 g/l, since not all sugars are fermentable to normal yeast strains and not all yeast strains are capable of fermenting to complete dryness. Even many “bone-dry” Brut Nature Champagnes tend to have 1-2 g/l RS.

The beauty of German Riesling is the interplay/tension of acidity and sweetness. The RS number means very little in and of itself if you don’t know the acidity. I think it would be very sad if winemakers intentionally tried to make a wine with the RS levels you are talking about.

I’m might be wrong but it really seems like you are confusing grams and percentages here. Almost all dry wines have at least a couple of grams of sugar per liter.

Driven by frustration, I’m about to become a disappointment to that crowd then, because this year I’m making a Riesling that is just that. Later pick, bone dry. Might be a failure, but an attempt at getting away from R’s historically dogmatic vinification. Not even sure I want to use a Hock-bottle. This is the new world after all and we can do things different. [wink.gif] [tease.gif]

Seriously best of luck! The problem with new world riesling is they can’t get the freakish acid numbers / PH / RS combinations that create the beautiful tension I love in German Riesling. I have had every great U.S. riesling from the Finger Lakes, California, Oregon etc and they are to be kind just a different wine than German rieslings, frankly as they should be since they are not made in Germany.

“Crazy sweet”? Not sure in what universe, but that is quite dry. If you ate food without any sugar, you would spit it out and call it unbalanced. Same with wine.

I hope the wine is great, and would love to try it, but you have a fundamental misunderstanding of Riesling, and what it can be - from totally dry to amazingly, and deliciously sweet.

Speaking of dogmatic vinification…

No doubt - I keep fumbling in the Riesling world, but loving the grape. So far, I can count on one hand the dry Rieslings I’ve had that truly felt dry to me. Last week there was a Trimbach. Googling says it has 2.4g/L RS, pH 3.09 and a TA 7.82g/L.

2.4 g/l feels truly dry, but 4 g/l is crazy sweet? [scratch.gif]

Trimbach does make dry Riesling. I am a huge fan.

Bone dry Riesling can come off as quite severe. The acidity in some vintages makes dry Riesling a struggle for some palates. Climate change certainly ameliorates that, but balance still has to be judged from year to year. Then there is the question of what the yeast wants to do. Many Riesling makers just allow the fermentation to take its course, and accept the end result - bone dry or not. As mentioned above, I really like dry Riesling, but the German Feinherb style is one I am gravitating to. You would consider it much too sweet, but I love the balance, and how it works with food.

Right. Trimbach doesn’t make Riesling at .5 g/l and below AFAIK. Even what is perceived as “bone” dry.

Do you intend to force your fermentation to reach this artificial level?