Riesling Renaissance
By Rob Dobson
for Savour Life Magazine, June 2006
Let’?s play a game. I’?ll give you some information about a wine and you try to guess what it is.
The grapes for this wine are grown on an impossibly steep, stony vineyard that is tended and harvested by hand. Yields are miniscule.
Production of this handcrafted wine (very old vines, natural yeasts) is less than 200 cases per year.
This wine has an amazing purity of fruit and layers of flavours that keep drawing the taster back for more. It?s the kind of wine that?s nearly impossible to put down.
The Wine Spectator gave this wine 93 points, Robert Parker gave it a 92.
This wine is:
a)2002 Screaming Eagle Napa Cabernet $300
b)2001 Guigal ?La Turque? Hermitage $399
c)2002 Ramonet Montrachet $350
d)2003 Chateau Petrus Bordeaux $750
e)2001 Chateau D?Yquem Sauternes $400
Those are all good guesses. These are wines that are far beyond the budget of almost everyone and they?’re not available in Saskatchewan and probably never will be. But what if I told you that the wine matching this description may soon be available here and that it might sell for less than 50 bucks? No, I?’m not kidding. Read on.
German wines have long been the Rodney Dangerfields of the wine world. Confusing labels, lame marketing and a serious identity crisis have caused great German Rieslings to be underappreciated and underpriced for many years. There has long been a perception that all German wines are soft, simple, sweet wines with little personality. Many wine drinkers confess to liking German wines at first, but that they are now in their rearview mirrors as they?ve moved on to bigger, drier, ?more serious? wines.
I was guilty of that opinion until I visited Germany about ten years ago. It became apparent to me that there are two categories of German wines. Sure, there are a lot of German wines that are made precisely for the market segment that wants easy-drinking, slightly sweet wines. But there is another category of German wines that include some of the most amazing expressions of the grape anywhere in the world. Unfortunately, that second category is so vastly overshadowed by the first that many people don?t know that there are some absolutely stunning German wines out there.
The best German wines are grown on river banks, usually with an exposure that maximizes sunlight. Many of these vineyards are extremely steep and covered with rocks or slate. Germany is very susceptible to the vagaries of the four seasons. It?s so far north that not every year produces ripe grapes. Not to mention the floods that punish the towns and vineyards along the rivers every few years.
Years ago, as I stood in a steep, rocky vineyard along the Mosel River, I looked down between my feet at the rooftops of the village below and wondered why anyone would try to make wine in a place that seems so ill-suited to growing grapes. But then the vineyard owner offered me some of the wine that he and his family had made from that vineyard. I?ll never forget the pure and precise fruit of that wine, how I could taste the slate I was standing on and how the steely acidity gave the wine such a long and haunting finish. I?m convinced that everyone who is interested in German wine should stand in one of those incredible vineyards so that they can appreciate what goes into producing top level Riesling.
It was that memory that made me jump at the opportunity to meet Johannes Selbach, whose family has produced some of the finest Rieslings in Germany since 1661. Both Johannes and his late father Hans have been tireless promoters of quality German Riesling for many years. Their efforts and the high quality of the Selbach?s wines have put them in the top echelon of German wine producers. The Selbach family has two branches to their operation, the larger part is a negociant business that buys wine from other growers and sells it under the J.& H. Selbach label. The wines that the Selbach family produces from their own vineyards are sold under the Selbach-Oster label.
While Johannes Selbach regularly visits British Columbia and eastern Canada, this was his first visit to Saskatchewan since 1985. He was here to meet with the SLGA, attend a winemaker?s dinner with the Regina chapter of the German Wine Society, then it was off to Saskatoon to attend several events there. He had just come from Calgary and Vancouver in the previous two days. He was obviously tired and jet-lagged but he patiently answered all of my questions.
During our conversation, Johannes remarked that there truly is a ?Riesling Renaissance? happening. German wine sales have increased significantly, as have Riesling sales in other countries. Serious wine lovers are returning to Riesling and appreciating it as a high quality wine. People are also realizing that its lower alcohol and great acidity make Riesling a delicious partner to a wide variety of foods. Restaurants are adding Riesling back to their wine lists. When I asked about the popularity of Australian Rieslings, Johannes remarked, ?The Aussies drank themselves sick of big oaky Chardonnays, they now want wines that are easier and more pleasant to drink?. He believes that many consumers are tiring of what he calls ?baseball bat? wines ? wines that are so ripe and alcoholic that they practically hit you over the head. These wines often score highly in the wine press, but they are heavy and difficult to enjoy with food. He believes that there is a trend towards lighter, more elegant and nuanced wines. He also feels that many wine lovers want wines that are less of an industrial product in favour of wines that have more ?soul?- wines that reflect the place that they come from and the ideals of the people who make them.
Johannes noted that many of the top quality German Riesling producers are finally getting more respect from the people who sell their wine. ?We no longer have to go to them, they are beginning to come to us and ask for our wines?. With this improving respect and market demand, many German producers are finally beginning to see more realistic prices for their wines.
Other wine regions have turned their winemakers and winery owners into celebrities and have marketed their wines as luxury items. When asked why Germany has never taken this approach, Johannes responded that German winemakers have a different attitude about making wine. ?I?m not in this for the glamour, I was born into winemaking. It is what my family has done for generations.?
Johannes believes it is his family?s duty to make the best wine they can with what Mother Nature gives them each year. It is their approach to be ?hands on? in the vineyard and ?hands off? in the winery. This means that they take great care in managing their vineyards to produce the best grapes, including a green harvest (reducing the number of grape bunches per vine early in the season), making several passes through the vineyard during harvest to hand-select only the ripest grapes, and declassifying any grapes or wine that are not up to their standards. In the winery, intervention by the winemaker is minimal. The Selbachs use the wild yeast on the grapes for fermentation, which by most wineries? standards is risky and inefficient, but the Selbachs believe it produces the truest expression of each of their vineyards.
As Johannes prepared to leave for the German Wine Society Dinner, I asked him if he had any closing messages for Savour Life readers. Without hesitation he said, ?Come out and drink Riesling people! Most people don?t know that they like German wines.?
He’?s right, you know.
Wine Recommendations
Most of the listings at the SLGA reflect the common view that German wines are inexpensive and inconsequential wines. There are several listings that offer very good value for the lively, fresh wines that they are. But a high quality Riesling wine transcends those humble qualities. Great Riesling is often a bundle of paradoxes: aromas of flowers but also hints of minerals; luscious fruit but with racy acidity; low alcohol but with a finish that lingers.
There is currently only one non-dessert German wine listing that costs over $20. The 2002 Studert-Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Kabinett sells for $20.69 and it exhibits the mineral character and penetrating fruit that distinguish a top-class Riesling. Good value Rieslings that are delicious, but have less of that complex mineral character include the 2004 Dr. L from Dr. Loosen at $14.75 and two listings from J. & H. Selbach. The 2004 J. & H. Selbach Bereich Bernkastel Riesling is a great bargain at $12.45 and the 2004 J. & H. Selbach Detzemer Maximiner Klosterlay Riesling Spatlese offers a little more depth and richness for only $13.60. I recently had this wine at a Thai cooking demonstration at Zest Restaurant (Regina) and it was a superb match with that style of cuisine.
When I met Johannes Selbach and Doug Reichel, his Saskatchewan agent, they brought along two wines that they hope will soon be available in Saskatchewan. They will be. The first was the 2004 J. & H. Selbach ?Green Fish Label? Riesling Kabinett. The Selbachs have created a very modern looking package for this wine that features a screw cap and a label designed by Vancouver artist Johanna Waldorf. The wine inside is equally modern, with zingy fruit and some nice minerally flavours that are perfectly balanced by a crisp finish that will please those who like their German wines a little less sweet.
Okay, time to reveal the wine I described at the beginning of this article (it?s your reward for reading this far). The 2003 Selbach-Oster Zeltinger Schlossberg Riesling Auslese instantly carried me back to that steep Mosel vineyard. This is a captivating Riesling. It smells like a fruit salad of freshly sliced peaches, pears and green apples drizzled with maple syrup. Those fruit flavours explode in the mouth, but slate flavours and a steely acidity ensure that the wine does not seem overly sweet even though it?s an Auslese. It has a long finish with none of the heaviness or ?burn? that more alcoholic wines often leave behind. It?s hard to believe that a wine with only 8.5% alcohol can be so deep and nuanced. Even though German wines at the Auslese level are usually considered to be dessert wines, I would gladly drink this with a main course. Or an appetizer. Or before dinner. Or with breakfast?
I?m pleased to say Doug Reichel reports that both of these wines are being ordered by the SLGA and will be available in Saskatchewan toward the end of August/beginning of September. He?s anticipating that the Selbach Fish Label Kabinett will sell for under $20 and that the Selbach-Oster Zeltiner Schlossberg Riesling Auslese under $40.