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

The summary table is shown below and included as part of the more detailed guidelines
in the section.  Ultimately it is each wine maker’s decision where to place the arrow
along the continuum from Dry to Sweet, but these tools are intended to help.

Jekel Vineyards will begin adding the International Riesling Foundation Riesling Taste Profile scale to its Monterey Riesling back label, effective with the vintage change in 2008.

Brand Director Tom Dempsey has already placed the scale on tasting notes and other educational material used by distributors, wine educators and others who interact with wine consumers.  The label is also used on the IRF website as an example of how wineries might embrace the effort http://www.drinkriesling.com/home/tastescale/use-of-taste-profile .

Jekel’s Riesling, with residual sugar most vintages hovering right around the 1% level, has in the past been referred to as “off-dry” but will now be called”medium-dry” according to the language of the scale, which also features a pointer located along an axis that flows from Dry to Sweet.

“Jekel’s medium-dry Rieslings have always been the signature wine of the winery, popular with restaurants because it pairs so well with a wide array and styles of food, particularly enticing Pan Asian cuisine with a touch of spice,” said Dempsey.  ”Any consumer-friendly effort that helps explain that Rieslings come in a wide array of taste profiles, from dry to sweet, is a consumer benefit we can easily embrace.”

Jekel’s Riesling is frequently among the most highly acclaimed of the vintage, with the 2007 effort earning acclaim at the California State Fair as one of the two top Rieslings in the state.

To learn more about the work of the International Riesling Foundation, visit the IRF’s new website at www.drinkriesling.com .  Visit Jekel on the web at www.jekel.com .

Jekel Media Contact: Jim_Caudill@B-F.com
[707] 237-3461 or mobile [707] 799-0144

Though it may sound strange, Riesling has a transparency about it – a heightened sensitivity to its surroundings. Riesling responds best to cool climates and nutritionally poor soils with high mineral content. When you manipulate Riesling away from its natural environment, it will create mediocre wines that lack complex character and vitality.

To preserve the fresh quality of Riesling, grapes and juice may be chilled throughout the vinification process: immediately following harvest to preserve the grapes’ more delicate flavors, after the juice has been processed through a press and right before fermentation. During fermentation, the wine is usually kept cool in temperature-controlled stainless steel tanks kept between 50-65°F (10-18°C). This differs markedly from red wine fermentations which normally attain temperatures of 75-85°F (24-29°C). Unlike Chardonnays, most Rieslings are not permitted to undergo malolactic fermentation. This helps to preserve the tart, acidic characteristic of the wine, giving Riesling its bright, vibrant quality and not introducing any extraneous or distracting buttery aromas.

Riesling is often put through a process of cold stabilization, where the wine is stored just above its freezing point. The wine is kept at this temperature until much of the potassium bitartrate (the acid salt of tartaric acid) has precipitated out of the wine. This helps prevent crystallization of the bitartrates (often called “wine diamonds”) in the bottle. After this, the wine is normally filtered to remove any remaining yeast or impurities. In order to avoid re-fermentation in the bottle, most Rieslings are sterile filtered because they contain residual malic acid and residual sugar.