German Riesling: An Overlooked Gem

I have chosen here to write not about one single bottle to start, but about a vineyard and what I have had the pleasure of trying from them. These are not your typical wines nowadays and I would be willing to bet that more than a few of you at a restaurant would turn your nose up at the suggestion of one, or would completely overlook the section of the wine list without a second glance. This in my opinion is a tragedy!

The country is Germany, the region Mosel and the grape Riesling. The vineyard is Maximin Grünhaus, situated in the picturesque village of Mertesdorf a couple of miles up a feeding stream of the Mosel river. Nowadays the Riesling grape is undergoing somewhat of a revival in the New World, especially in New Zealand and Australia. Alsace is an Old World location where the grape is very popular and it produces a decent, and at times extremely good, complex, dry wine. These are very nice wines and go very well as a replacement for the regular white suspects from the Loire and Marlborough, especially if they originate from Domaine Ostertag.

At Maximin Grünhaus they have been making wine in the old style for hundreds of years and continue a tried and tested method that produces the best Riesling available, in my opinion, in the whole world of wine.

The site has been producing wine for over 1000 years and a significant proportion of the vines are that age. This, coupled with the intense minerality of the soil from the incredibly fertile Mosel river region, lends the makers an unrivaled advantage built into the very fabric of the terroir they are tending. For the last 100 years or so the same family has been in charge of it, the von Schuberts, and they all have been incredibly passionate about what they produce.

On the estate there are three vineyards: the Abtsberg (which originally supplied wine to the nearby monastery's Abbot), the Herrenberg (which supplied to the choirmasters) and the Bruderberg (which supplied the monks). The first two produce the most significant and award-winning wines today, the Abtsberg especially. Each of these produce wines of different levels of sweetness, classified by German wine regulations as Kabinett (least sweet), Spätlese, Auslese, Beerenauslese and Trockenbeerenauslese (most sweet). I shall detail the Abtsberg Kabinett, and briefly the Auslese below.

The Kabinett can be bought for between 20 and 25 pounds and should be the first German Riesling anyone tries – it is the perfect entry level wine with the right food pairing. The general rule is that the more sweet, the more expensive. The Auslese can be bought for around 30, while the Trockenbeerenauslese (which is extremely rare) cannot be found for less than about 400 per bottle.

The first thing anyone can notice when the Kabinett is poured is the straw colour of the wine. There may even be a slightest hint of fizzy air bubbles clinging to the side of the glass if left for a couple of minutes. On the nose there are rich and ripe apples, pears with a hint of pineapple also. Always in the background there is a hint of acidity which would let a taster know that it was the driest of the classified Rieslings. On the palate the initial taste is sugary fruitiness. There is a hint of effervescence on the tongue followed by an extremely flowery, delicate and appley taste. As soon as it is swallowed, the finish begins. It is very long-lasting and the wine continues to develop, showing its dry acidity which cuts the residual sugar and sweetness and gives the taster hints of lime and minerality. It is incredibly well-developed, well-rounded and complex and the combination of flavours mix subtly throughout the process. Recently I have drunk the 2007 with various dishes. Scallops with an apple purée worked very well, as did oysters and lobster. The stand-out dish however was boiled crab with a chilled orange consommé. The sweetness of the crab meat matched perfectly in the mouth with the residual sugar in the Riesling, while the tart consommé at the back of the palate was equaled by the acidity and lengthy finish of the wine.

The Auslese is more of a dessert wine and the restaurant I worked in over the summer served it by the glass in accompaniment to their cheese list. I've had the chance to try the 2005 as well as the 2007 and 2008. The 2005 is much more developed, but won't last much more than the next few years – drink it while you can! It is exquisite with blue cheese of any kind, the saltier the better – the effervescence wraps the blue well enough to then let the residual sugar give that dessert wine feel afterwards. It isn't quite full or sweet enough to be a replacement for dessert wines with sweet dishes, but is unrivaled with cheese.