I met with Grossett in the grand entranceway at the 13th Australian Wine Industry
Technical Conference in Adelaide in mid-2006, and the fervor Grossett showed for the
organization (of which he had previously heard not a word, since it had not then been formed!)
was a bit surprising since I long ago knew that Australia has a long and glorious history with
Riesling that dates back to the earliest days of Barossa Valley’s German settlers in the early
1800s.

So strong is the Riesling culture in Australia that the subject has been well covered by the
country’s plethora of wine writers, many of whom treat the grape and the wine the way American
wine writers treat Chardonnay or Cabernet Sauvignon. Aussie wine columnists do annual
columns on the state of Riesling of the latest harvest; they track the quality level of Rieslings
from various regions and houses, and above all they wax poetic about the glories of aged
Riesling, a topic only one U.S. wine columnist has ever addressed more than once. Few ever
have.

Aussie Riesling has its own vibrant subculture in Australia, a fact little known outside the
country. Yet when first-time Australian Riesling consumers try the wines, whether the wines are
from the most recent vintage or long-cellared treasures, most newcomers are shocked by the style

of wine.

Because not only are these wines dry, they are also remarkably crisp, lean, minerally and
lemon-sour tart. Not even German wines designated Trocken (dry) are this austere. The only
parallel that fits here is Muscadet-lean, and I mean that in the most ascetic way.

Not that the wines are hard to drink by themselves, but with wines this crisp, the best
things to do with them are (a) serve them with food, or (b) age them.

Now, on the face of it, aged Riesling sounds like a distinct contradiction to the common
wisdom — that all white wines should be consumed as fast as possible. Some 30 years ago, I
believed that.

My reeducation began in the mid-1970s when I was first exposed to some German,
Alsacienne and Australian Rieslings that had been properly stored. Some of these wines had a bit
of residual sugar, and were structured properly to make it past one year.

It started for me with German Rieslings when an importer friend served me a 1967 Spätlese
that was utterly sublime. When well-made wines are aged a decade or two, any sugar in such
wines tends to become subsumed into its complexity. And the sugar isn’t as sweet.

At 20 years, the character is an astounding combination of things like petroleum (the
Germans call it “toast”), lichee nuts, toasted pine nuts, cynar, and a range of other elements too
numerous to detail.

Most American Rieslings were never made to be aged properly past a year or two because
acid and pH levels were not in the proper range, and thus most American Riesling buyers drew
the conclusion that they are made to be consumed young only.

Since that was the prevailing opinion, wineries made the wines softer and sweeter, and
the result was wines that were essentially soft, innocuous, and simple. Sure, they can be
charming. Served with a sweet Asian chicken salad with a sesame-ginger-honey dressing, they
delight on a warm spring afternoon, or a hot summer evening.

The real problem with sweeter Rieslings is that they too often lack acidity, which some
buyers equated with their drink-now mode.

Australians, on the other hand, have developed a palate for the bone-dry style of wine that
seems to dominate Aussie Rieslings. When the grapes are harvested as early as they are for that
style of wine, the natural aromas lean more toward the lime, pine, mint, juniper, stone fruit,
minerals, or even underbrush in a rain forest, which replaces guava/pineapple tropical fruit of
young Rieslings from warmer climes.

Such wines then evolve into magnificent and complex elixirs over years. Sure, it does
take getting used to. Learning to like older Riesling is a taste one acquires the way we gain a love
for mature oloroso sherry, old Rioja or Chianti, or even White Burgundy.

One reason Grossett was so keen on becoming part of the fledgling organization had little
to do with selling the wines to a broader audience. Grossett and many top Australian producers
already make and sell a lot of Australian Riesling at home and in Asia, where it is prized.

No, what captivated Grossett was that an organization seemed ripe for furthering
Riesling’s cause, broadening the awareness of Australian styles of the grape and its wines. Which
is what this article, four years after our meeting, is all about.

Today we have access to a great number of superb and reasonably priced Australian
Rieslings, offering us a chance to get wines with the structure to go the long haul. Almost all are
dry and made with bracing acidity.

Most of the best Rieslings from Australia have come into the United States over the last
decade made to sell for about $15 to $20 a bottle. A tiny handful (such as Grossett’s Polish Hill
wine from Clare Valley) sell for $20 to $30.

The culture of Riesling in Australia is so strong that it has reached into a vital second
stage of development, quality assessments based on vintage, and now a third stage, regional
distinctiveness.

Clare Valley, well north of Adelaide (about a two-hour drive), is a cooler region with
days warm enough to ripen red wine grapes, but with late afternoon breezes and evening cold to
make it a perfect climate for Riesling. It appears to be the most important Riesling area in
Australia.

A close second is the smaller and actually colder Eden Valley, which is actually a high
plain above the Barossa. About a quarter of a mile high in altitude, Eden Valley makes slightly
different but still classic Australian Rieslings with a personality all their own.

Many other regions now grow Riesling with Western Australia and Coonawarra
contributing some phenomenal efforts.

Though it has grown Riesling for a long time, Australia began to display Riesling
greatness in the 1950s, but it wasn’t until the late 1960s that John Vickery’s Leo Buring Rieslings
began to establish the regional characteristic of Clare Valley that soon become the iconic style for
which we recognize Australian Riesling. His nearly 1970s Rieslings are still being displayed to
this day to oohs and ahhs by Aussie collectors. He remains one of the top Australian wine makers
to this day.

Recent steps toward Riesling greatness in other districts, such as the Yarra Valley, Great
Southern, Gippsland, the Grampians, Adelaide Hills, Tasmania, and Orange were recognized in
the new 2010 book “Riesling in Australia” by wine maker Ken Helms and Trish Burgess. This is
a superb book that is at present available only in Australia. (Log onto http://
www.helmwines.com.au for details.)

Because it is such an acquired taste, Australia’s top Rieslings are still a relatively slow

sell on the U.S. market, but those who understand the wine’s remarkable aging potential are
benefitting from close-outs and deep discounts for what some retailers see as “old” Riesling.

It may well be time for more U.S. wine collectors to educate themselves to such glories
before prices for mature Rieslings, instead of falling, rise to their appropriate levels.

After a trip to speak at a New York viticulture symposium, I arranged to bring back home a number of New York Rieslings, all from the Finger Lakes, and poured them blind for the Vintage Hills Tasting Group.

This group, mainly composed of Sonoma County wine makers, meets numerous times a year in the labs of various Northern Sonoma wineries to try wines of all kinds. Recent tastings have included Alsace Gewurztraminers and New Zealand Pinot Noirs.

When I proposed the New York Riesling tasting, a number of members were very excited since they had heard a lot about the wines, but few had ever tasted more than one or two.

What was fascinating for me was not the positions of the wines after the tasting, but that the wine makers were really in love with most of the wines. Also of interest is that even where there was residual sugar ion a wine, it seemed to be perfectly balanced by great acidity.

Very little Riesling is made in Sonoma County (a lot more by percentage comes from Lake and Mendocino counties), yet the tasters gave superb tasting notes to all wines except one, which was (alas) corked.

The winning wine was 2008 Anthony Road, a dry wine that still has a succulent finish. The wine makers’ descriptors included flinty, slate, peach, petrol, and a hint of geranium. One taster felt the wine’s acidity was a tad low, but he still praised the wine for its balance.

Second place was 2008 Dr. Konstantin Franc Semi-Dry that most tasters believed would work nicely with crab or lobster. Descriptors included floral/terpene, peach, pear, and pumpkin. Main comments were that the wine might have said Semi-Dry on the label, but the acid was high enough so the wine’s finish was relatively dry.

Third was a sweeter wine from Columbia Crest in Washington (a ringer I included, and which I ranked 11th out of 12). The wine makers liked the way the residual sugar worked with the acid, and two believed the wine to be from Germany. A few of the wine makers saw the wine as atypical of the rest of the group.

Fourth overall was 2007 Sheldrake Point Dry (lime, waxy, and complex) with superb acidity, a real food wine. I have had this wine many times since its release and love how it works with Thai food.

Fifth overall, and my first place wine, was 2008 Red Tail Ridge Dry, a wine of immense spice, faintly waxy with an aroma of dried flowers, apricot and peach. The wine, from Lake Seneca’s western shore, has a trace of residual sugar and superb acidity to balance it.

Other Rieslings scoring high with the Sonoma judges were 2007 Fox Run, 2008 Lamoreaux Landing, 2008 Dr. Frank Dry, and 2008 Lakewood Vineyards.

Needless to say, Finger Lakes Riesling has arrived as a superb wine. And for the last few years, California wine maker Scott Harvey has used Finger Lakes Riesling fruit for his Jana Riesling, a great project that proves that this category has a fast-growing following.

A final comment on the Riesling tasting: One of the best tasters with the Vintage Hills group is a long-time wine maker who has experience with a wide range of Rieslings. During the tasting, a number of the tasters commented on the fact that some of the New York versions showed traces of petroleum. The comments came from a few of the younger tasters.

Finally, a tad exasperated with such comments, the older wine maker said, “You people need more experience with great Rieslings. Then you’d realize that petroleum is a fruit!”

The Riesling Taste Profile was created by the International Riesling Foundation (IRF), a global nonprofit organization formed to promote Riesling as the world’s most noble white wine variety. The need became apparent when IRF-commissioned market research by Wine Opinions reaffirmed that many consumers still think of Riesling only as “a sweet white wine” despite the wide range of tastes it can represent.

Major producers in the largest Riesling producing states—Washington, California, Oregon, Michigan and New York—will be using the Taste Profile, along with some wineries from other states and countries including Germany, Australia and New Zealand. A partial list of wineries using the Taste Profile is shown below, with the range of wines dramatically illustrating why such a consumer-friendly tool is needed.

Riesling was the fastest growing varietal in the United States in 2009, with an 8.3% increase in sales, according to data from the Nielsen Company. Widespread use of the Riesling Taste Profile is likely to accelerate that growth by making Riesling more understandable, predictable, and consumer-friendly.

(In some countries such as Canada, Germany, and South Africa there are regulatory restrictions preventing its use on labels of wines sold within the country, but wines exported to the United States may include it. In addition, some wineries like Cave Spring in Canada and Paul Cluver Wines in South Africa are using the Taste Profile on point-of-sale merchandizing materials, which is perfectly allowable.)

The Taste Profile involves voluntary technical guidelines for Riesling producers in describing their wines for consumers along with four graphic options that may be used on a back label, point-of-sale materials, and elsewhere. Several examples of such use are shown in the Riesling Taste Profile section of the IRF web site, www.drinkriesling.com, which also contains everything necessary to download and customize the Taste Profile and related point-of-sale materials.

“Riesling may be made in many styles from bone dry to sweet, and this versatility can be both a strength and a weakness,” said California wine journalist Dan Berger who spearheaded the IRF project in consultation with many Riesling wine makers. “Riesling’s many styles can fit almost any taste preference, but consumers may be put off if they are expecting one taste and get another. The taste profile will enhance Riesling’s strength by letting consumers know the basic taste before they open or even buy the bottle.”

To help wine makers consider which terms to use for various wines, the committee developed a technical chart of parameters involving the interplay of sugar, acid, and pH which helps determine the probable taste profile of a particular wine. Another key step in the project was to identify appropriate terms for describing the relative dryness or sweetness of the wine. After extensive deliberations, the four categories selected are: Dry, Medium Dry, Medium Sweet, and Sweet. (Some producers continue to use Semi-Dry or Semi-Sweet on their front labels, but the Taste Profile uses “Medium” in both cases.)

“It is important to understand that these are simply recommended guidelines which we think may be helpful, but the program is entirely voluntary,” said Berger. “We are encouraged that many Riesling producers are already using the system because it will help consumers, and therefore help the wineries as well.”

The next step was to develop a simple graphic design showing the four levels from Dry to Sweet, and
a simple indication of where a particular wine falls. This design may be used on back labels, merchandising materials, web sites and elsewhere. The goal is to have a common, simple, consumer-friendly system for identifying Riesling tastes.

With substantial input from IRF Board members who are Riesling producers, New York-based artist Book Marshall developed four options (shown below) which may be used by wineries, depending on their back label space and design. The preferred design is #1, which includes the words, “This Riesling is…” above the bar, and “International Riesling Foundation” with a logo below it.

“This is a very important project, and we’re grateful to Dan Berger and others who spent many hours on this,” said Jim Trezise, President of the IRF. “With Riesling’s surging popularity among consumers, making this versatile wine more understandable and user-friendly could accelerate its growth.”

The Riesling Taste Profile was developed in time to be available for use by northern hemisphere wineries on wines from the 2008 vintage. While several producers used it on those wines marketed in 2009, its use in 2010 will be far more widespread. There is no fee to use it, and the copyright was obtained only to protect against incorrect use.

The IRF Riesling Taste Profile is also being adopted by major international wine judgings such as the Los Angeles International Wine & Spirits, and Riverside International, competitions, as the basis for their Riesling categories.

The IRF’s mission is: “To increase awareness, understanding, trial and sales of Riesling wines through a comprehensive, integrated system of industry cooperation, research, trade education, and consumer communication.”

PDF of press release

A complainant wrote to me recently to say that my comments that there were a plethora of fascinating Rieslings from many places in the world were, in his words, mindless.

His point was that there was but one Riesling and it came from Germany, and that all others were mere pretenders. And, from what I gathered from his remarks, no others were worth drinking.

In a way, I sympathized with his myopia. There is no question that the absolute paradigm for this superb grape is Germany, with its difficult soils, its hard-to-predict weather, and its myriad of other problems not the least of which is the way certain sub-regions impact how the aromas and flavors will develop.

But to dismiss all other Rieslings as unworthy to consume is a rather narrow view, and one that indicates that the writer probably has never tried a Riesling from Austria, Alsace, or Australia with their distinctive personalities. Or any others.

It is easy to dismiss that which you have never tried. But even if this writer had tried others and found them un-Germanic, is that any reason to declare all the others mere charlatans? Those of us who have tried the great Rieslings of New York might likewise dispute the fact that a Riesling from Colorado deserved to win a major international wine tasting a couple of years ago. I was all set to dispute this result until a recent trip to Colorado where I was stunned by the quality of many wines, not the least a few Rieslings (not to mention a simply remarkable Gewurztraminer).

Were any of these wines Germanic in character? No. Not close. But neither are any of the superb bone-dry Rieslings of Australia’s Clare and Eden valleys Germanic, in the strict sense of the word, and yet the characteristics they offer, though radically different from those found in Germany, still deliver a distinctiveness that is the grape as rendered by another soil and climate.

And isn’t that a commanding statement of how great a grape Riesling is? Despite wildly differing growing conditions, only Riesling can make a locally acknowledged great wine with little dispute — and in a wine that shows the identifiability of the grape.

Take Cabernet Sauvignon for example. Bordeaux is the worldwide model, but some have confused Napa Cabernet for Bordeaux ands vice versa. But in recent years, purists seem to prefer Bordeaux. Burgundy may be the world’s best place to grow Pinot Noir, but a number of cooler-climate Californian Pinot Noirs as well as New Zealand offerings are now making a challenge, suggesting that Burgundian flavors can be extracted from regions other than Burgundy. But Burgundy remains the wine lovers’ wine of choice (if price is no object).

It is clear that wines from the paradigm-ic regions remain still captivate wine lovers and remain first in their hearts.

But put a well-chosen Michigan, Oregon, Colorado, Temecula, or Tasmanian Riesling down in front of a wine lover, and he or she might note (quickly) that it is not German, but also may point out the delight of Riesling aromas and flavors that the wine delivers.

No, it may not be German, but there is an indefinable quality to the wine that says, “This is Riesling,” and that may be all that one needs to know that a good drink is ahead.

Yes, it’s fine to be pro-German Riesling. Our cellar has loads of them. But we are also at least as much in love with the grape as we are the paradigm, and we are trying with delight Rieslings from Mendocino County, southern Washington, Italy and Chile, and even places like Ohio, Wisconsin, and Virginia that defy the statement “you can’t do that here.”

Riesling is so great a grape that it can perform where other grapes only can make a pretender.

I opened a bottle of Spanish Sherry the other day that had on its front label the words “Medium Dry.”

And this brought to mind a possible problem with the International Riesling Foundation’s taste scale, which has so far been seen as a great addition to the wine labels of numerous wineries around the world.

The term “Medium Dry” is, as we know, rather relative in that it is based on a relationship between the wine’s sugar and its acidity, with a pH adjustment factor added in.

In most cases this will work just fine. However, as I sipped this rather sweet Sherry, it dawned on me that we had a dilemma. That is, when using the Riesling taste scale, we have to assume a moderate alcohol level.

The Sherry, of course, was fortified, so its sugar and acid were hard to asertain since the alcohol was listed as 17%. Which is a lot more than most Rieslings will ever see.

But the alcohol level of Riesling is a concern when it comes to structural balance of a wine, and this relates as much to German wines as it does to Rieslings from other countries. It is a factor, too, for many other table wines.

It is well known that any table wine reaching high alcohol levels (I’d say 15% for white wines and 16% for reds are both a bit on the high side) can become a problem for the overall structure of the wine. High alcohol almost always leaves a wine with a sense of sweetness, even if no actual sugar is there.

With the alcohol levels in excellent Riesling typically low (in the 10% to 13% range in most cases), our IRF taste scale is quite workable. (Of course, the same exact wine would be radically different if one fraction was fermented to dryness at 13% and another portion of the same wine was reduced in alcohol to 10%, but that’s not a likely scenario.)

But if you take this issue to its most illogical conclusion, imagine that a wine maker, for reasons I won’t even dare to guess, chooses to pick his Riesling grapes at 26 degrees Brix, ferments the wine down to 1% residual surag (10 grams per liter), and then does not de-alcoholize the wine. And further let us assume there is a Riesling out there with sufficient acidity and a low enough pH to warrant being called medium dry on a technical basis.

If this wine has an alcohol level of, say, 15.5%, would it be seen as really “medium dry” by most tasters? I’m guessing this “chicken with three legs” would taste rather sweet, and be, at best, seen as medium sweet.

Clearly this is a curious wine and is not one that would command much attention by Riesling purists.

But the message of this week is that alcohol cannot be ignored in the grand scheme of things. And yet for the IRF to have factored alcohol into the taste scale would have made for a three-dimensional technical chart that would have caused more confusion than clarity.

As you think of the taste scale, remember that the unspoken fly in the ointment is the alcohol. We at the IRF are all fully aware of this dilemma, and may address the glitch in the future.

For now, we are seeing wineries around the world adopt the tasting scale for their labels and sales and marketing campaigns. And to that we say, hat’s off!

Indeed, the fact that the dry style of Riesling hit a flat spot with consumers for some decades in the latter half of the 20th century may actually have contributed to one of wine’s saddest episodes.

The owner of the famed Schloss Vollrads, Count Erwein Graf Matuschka-Greiffenclau, was passionate about Dry Riesling. In fact, he all but abandoned the sweeter versions of German Riesling in favor of dry wines, and in the mid-1990s he staged a muilti-city tour of the United States to promote them.

The tour went well. Wine writers across the country basically agreeed that the dry versions of his wines were superb and they did, as he had emphasized, work brilliantly with food.

Alas, consumers were a bit slow to understand what Graf Matuschka was speaking about. By 1997, the famed property was some $13 million in debt. That year, the count took his own life, shooting himself on a hill at his famed estate.

A suicide note said, in part, “My life’s work is in ruins.”

Sadly, the rebirth of Dry Riesling is now well understood in more circles than ever, making a strong comeback from that period when Dry Riesling was seen as an esoteric and misunderstood wine. Had the rediscovery of Dry Riesling occurred just 12 years earlier, it would have left Graf Matuschka a hero and not merely a small asterisk in the Riesling history books.

Riesling today has established a record for making great wine in many locations, beginning of course in Germany long ago. German Riesling is widely known for the greatness of its sweeter wines. And part of that success can be traced to price. When trockenbeerenauslesen sell for many hundreds of dollars per half bottle, that does entice wine collectors with the wherewithal to buy them. And so it is assumed that because they are so expensive they represent the pinnacle of German wine making.

And so by contrast, consumers assume that Dry Riesling shouldn’t cost very much.

And here comes a contradiction. Dry Riesling actually is not easy to make, and should cost a lot more than it typically does.

Though Riesling can make a wine that displays its regionality well (the classic examples are the distinctive delicacy of Mosel wines and the relatively richer Rheingaus; the differences between Eden and Clare valleys in Australia; the fascinating qualities of Rieslings from Mendocino’s Potter Valley versus those of Cole Ranch), the fact is that it is not easy to make a Dry Riesling. In fact, the reasons are not hard to figure out if you give it much thought.

A sweeter Riesling (perhaps one with 2% or 20 grams per liter of residual sugar) is crafted to be succulent, the sugar muting to a degree the effect of the acidity. This sugar content can also mask trace amounts of bitterness and can also give a fleshy mid-palate to a wine that needs a bit of assistance.

Dry Riesling, by contrast, is a “naked” wine. It is unadorned and as such reveals its grapes with no coy veil or disguise.

When viewed this way, it is clear than a Dry Riesling must be made from the best fruit a grower can get his or her hands on. It usually means smaller tonnage per acre. And that means the grapes must cost more.

Moreover, once inside the winery, such grapes cannot be pressed as heavily for fear of bitterness, and that means fewer gallons out of a ton of fruit. And in the grand scheme of things, it means that less-than-excellent lots should be blended into lesser wines and not used for the Dry Riesling. Only the very best wines can be used in the final product.

As we all know when we look at the IRF’s sweetness guidelines, not every Riesling has to be “bone dry” to be really tart and crisp. A bit of sugar is often key to making wines succulent while still delivering a dry finish, aiuded by great acid and low pH.

Many wineries now make a wine they call Dry Riesling even though they contain some residual sugars. And German Dry Riesling, called Trocken, often contains up to 0.9% residual sugar. These wines are often bone dry on the tongue since the acid levels are high and the pH levels very low.

An Australian winery put out an exceptional Dry Riesling recently that sells for more than $30 a bottle. I heard one wine lover claim the price was too high. But when you taste such a wine, you can understand the sublime character it delivers.

It is a character that only Dry Riesling delivers, and for that privilege, I’m perfectly willing to pay a little more.

Dan Berger

P.O. Box 5857

Santa Rosa, CA 95402

707-528-9466

Depending who you are, the need for such a formal organization is either obvious or it is pointless. A resident of Trier who dines out, is a wine lover, and has many contacts with the German wine industry would be among the latter. To this person, Riesling is clearly one of the greatest wines in the world and to create an organization to support it might seem to be completely unnecessary.

By contrast there are those who would not only ask the first question posed above, but might also ask, “What is Riesling anyhow?”

That’s because the reality is that, despite wide recognition as a great grape and a great wine, Riesling remains either completely unknown for those traits, or simply unknown, period, in some areas of the world.

Consider that in the United States about one bottle out of every five consumed is Chardonnay. By contrast, Riesling sales are so small they are included in the category called “other, 2%.” Which means it is part of the same group of wines that includes French Colombard, Semillon, and Carmine.

In the late spring of 2006 a group of Riesling fanatics got to chatting and noted that there were more great Rieslings extant than ever before in history. Not only was German Riesling more divergent than ever before with wines of dramatic sweetness levels all the way to zero, but modern wine making techniques, better understanding of viticulture, and emerging new regions with their own unique styles all have reconstituted the face of Riesling in the 21st century.

And still the grape and its wine were less known than they ought to be.

As we chatted, it became clear that all of this excitement was due to the fact (one we all acknowledged) that Riesling sales in the United States , and some other areas of the world, were on the rise.

Yet those sales were not reflected in the scores that Rieslings were getting from supposedly knowledgeable wine critics who were, in reality, Chardonnay lovers, Cabernet Sauvignon lovers, and lovers of a lot of other “big” wines, but who seemed totally ignorant of one aspect of Riesling’s persona that is intertwined with its character.

That is the ability of this grape, and its resulting wine, to display the character of the soil from which it is drawn. Whether you use the famous French T-word, or regionality, or placeness, Riesling – of all the world’s greatest wine grapes – is probably the most site-specific of them all. Enveloped in all this is the fact that it is perfectly valid to consider site-specificity when judging the character of a Riesling.

Thus it is possible to have a wide array of wines that are all rated equally sensational even though one has an aroma of lime and is bone dry, another smells like clover blossoms and is slightly sweet, and yet another has enough petroleum to smell like a tanker at refueling time.

Alas, some of the movers in the wine world seemed to be fixated on one or two styles of wine that they viewed as valid. And thus Riesling producers in far-flung regions were being discouraged to pursue making this wine by so-called experts who, in reality, knew little about the grape and its regional idiosyncrasies.

So back in 2006, we discussed the fact that not only does Aunt Minnie from Minnetonka need some direction on how to view and buy Riesling, but so do wine merchants. And wine wholesale sales people. Even sommeliers, who supposedly get training in Riesling, admit they don’t know enough about these wines.

As a result, the discussions turned to regional marketing groups. And it was unanimously noted that in California , where some 90%+ of all U.S. wine is grown, no regional marketing group ever mentions Riesling.

And at last, somewhat like Mickey Rooney in the old Andy Hardy films, someone suggested, “Hey, why don’t we do it?!”

So we did.

The International Riesling Foundation clearly has a goal — to ratchet up people’s understanding and knowledge about this superb grape. From the commercial nature of the (dot-com) name of this web site, you can tell we hope more people will buy Riesling, and members of the board of directors are pretty much from the industry.

But our goal can’t be met unless we improve awareness of Riesling’s wonderful attributes (lower alcohol; usual lack of oak; regional distinctiveness; ageability) while at the same time we become a repository for the wine’s superb lore, its history, and its modern-era identity.

To that end, we encourage all people who have an affinity for Riesling to help us in our quest. All contributions are welcome and the best will be posted as we go forward to lift Riesling to its rightful place in the society of great wines.

Dan
Dan Berger
P.O. Box 5857
Santa Rosa , CA 95402
707-528-9466