17 Dec 2009 - Bob Campbell in Your Home and Garden Magazine

Bob Campbell MW talks Riesling

“I love Riesling.  It’s my favourite white grape variety.  Pinot Noir just beats it for first place overall.  Why do I love it?  Let me count the ways:

• It comes in many different guises, from searingly dry to lusciously sweet
• It’s very food-friendly – as long as you match wine and food sweetness levels
• The best examples age superbly
• It is clearly the best value wine on sale in this country
• There are few bad Rieslings and many great ones.
  

...I suspect that many people don’t like Riesling because they think it’s sweet or, at least, not dry.  That is simply not true.  I recently tasted 172 Rieslings (heaven!) from around the world, but mostly made in New Zealand.  I divided them into the four sweetness levels reccommended by the International riesling Foundation (IRF) using a calculation that includes residual sugar, acidity and pH (strength of acidity).  The largest group (57 wines) was dry, the next largest (54) was medium/dry, then medium sweet (48), while the smallest group (12) was sweet...

...I celebrated by buying a case of Mt Difficulty Target Gully Riesling 2008 – it’s not dry, but it is terrific.

Here are a few tips for anyone who like a dry white wine, and especially for those who don’t like Riesling.

1. To find a dry New Zealand Riesling, it’s almost as simple as reading the label.  Most local dry Reislings are clearly labelled as such, although in a few cases you might have to hunt around on the back label.  Unforunately not all Rieslings labelled as‘dry’ meet my definition, or the IRF’s definition, of dry...
2. Buy Aussie.  Most Rieslings from the Clare and Eden Valleys of South Australia are bone dry.  It’s riskier buying Riesling from cooler Australian regions such as Tasmania and the Great Southern area of Western Australia as they have crisper acidity that’s often balanced by a little sweetness.  Perhaps because it tends to be reliably dry, Riesling is more popular in Australia than it is in New Zealand.
3. Buy Austrian.  Most Austrian Relsing is bone-dry.  It is also generally very good, though a little more expensive than Riesling from New Zealand and Australia.  It can be hard to find...”
4. Buy Mt Difficulty Dry Riesling – Actually Bob didn’t say that but he does describe it as magnificent ”...deliciously dry-ish..a mouth-watering mix of mineral, lime and floral flavours.”
   

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