For New Zealand’s aromatic whites ‘small but mighty’ could become the catchphrase – excluding Sauvignon Blanc, which obviously needs no introduction.

Making up just a tiny fraction of New Zealand’s total production, and often representing a labour of love for those who champion them, these aromatic varieties are nevertheless behind some of the country’s most thrilling and distinctive white wines.

Collectively, they make up less than 8% of New Zealand’s total planted area (including reds), bolstered considerably by the rise of Pinot Gris, whose plantings are nearly five times that of Riesling (see box), which in turn dwarfs Gewurztraminer. Albariño, generating real excitement in recent years, still boasts just 65ha, while semi-aromatic Chenin Blanc has dwindled to a mere 22ha, albeit in dedicated hands.

There aren’t a lot of these wines around, but they offer exceptional quality and remarkable value for drinkers willing to seek them out.

Paul Pujol, winemaker and general manager at Prophet’s Rock in Central Otago – and formerly the winemaker at Alsace’s Kuentz-Bas, the first non-family member to hold the position in the domaine’s 200-year history – is a passionate producer of Pinot Gris and Riesling (alongside a soon-to-be-released four-variety blend including Gewurztraminer and Muscat).

‘Outside Europe, there aren’t many places you can achieve the vibrancy, purity, intensity and freshness, and the true cool-climate expression of aromatic whites that we get in New Zealand,’ he says.

He feels that the varieties have been overshadowed by Pinot Noir and Sauvignon Blanc.

Perfect conditions

The quality and distinctiveness of these varieties stem from New Zealand’s southerly, largely maritime-influenced growing conditions.

These create long, cool, generally sunny seasons, often combined with significant diurnal temperature shifts, that intensify varietal expression while enabling a wide range of styles, from bone dry to botrytis-affected.

Most wines are made with at least a few grams of residual sugar, offset by vibrant natural acidity that gives the best examples appealingly clean finishes.

Winemaking is largely centred around the use of stainless steel containers to preserve fruit purity, though producers are increasingly turning to older oak, concrete and clay amphorae, with ageing on the fine lees adding texture and complexity.

At Framingham in Marlborough – renowned for producing half a dozen (or more) Riesling styles each season – winemaker Andrew Brown notes that the commercial realities remain challenging.

These wines largely depend on cellar door and retailer hand-selling to find their audience.

‘We are passionate about making the best examples of Riesling we can; the scope may be restricted if we didn’t have the cellar door as a sales channel,’ he says.

But he sees heads increasingly turning.

‘There are some really great examples coming out of NZ at the moment – more textural, restrained and ageworthy.’

Anna Flowerday (pictured, above) of Te Whare Ra, whose Riesling and Gewurztraminer vines are among Marlborough’s oldest, puts it simply: ‘We truly believe that aromatic whites are the unsung heroes. Overseas visitors are constantly blown away by the quality.’

New Zealand's finest non-Sauvignon aromatics

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Julia Rose Hoyle and Kelby James Russell are too busy for pinch-me moments.

The pair launched their Finger Lakes-based winery, Apollo’s Praise, in 2023 and are deep in the work.

Partners in life and love, they’ve got their hands full, from farming to fermenting, bottling to selling.

‘We’re working phenomenally hard on the back end because we recognise that we’ve been given the chance to help push the Finger Lakes forward,’ explains Russell.

With a charge like that, there is little time to pause – even when the praise is good.

Within three months of launching, inventory sold out, and scores reached up to 98-points, which is among the highest the region has received to date.

The duo keeps moving, popping up across the US and internationally as they introduce a brand that has brought a fresh new energy to Finger Lakes wine.

Finding Apollo

'Thus, then combining, hands and hearts joining, sing we in harmony Apollo’s praise. Here ev’ry gen’rous sentiment awaking, music inspiring unity and joy. Each social pleasure giving and partaking, glee and good humour our hours employ.'

These are the lyrics of ‘Glorious Apollo’, the 18th-century glee written by composer Samuel Webbe. They end every quarterly zine designed by Hoyle for Apollo’s Praise.

Russell first encountered Glorious Apollo at Harvard College, where he studied Orchestra Management and sang in the Glee Club.

His admission to the Ivy League school felt like a one-way ticket from his small Finger Lakes hometown that he’d eagerly been awaiting.

While there, he won a fellowship to study food in Italy.

‘I went for the mortadella,’ he laughs. To stretch the funding, Russell found lodging in exchange for work at a ‘quirky castle’ surrounded by vineyards.

‘It was a romantic spot. I fell in love with the lifestyle, got the wine bug, and decided – to my shock – to move back home and get into wine.’

A few hundred miles away, Hoyle traded northern Pennsylvania for Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York.

She picked up seasonal work in the tasting room at Fox Run Vineyards, but found herself fascinated by winemaking: ‘I wanted to learn more about this product that there’s no firm answer on – I wanted to know more all the time.’

Russell arrived at Fox Run two weeks after Hoyle, dressed for an interview, only to be handed a shovel on what would become his first day of harvest.

He and Hoyle quickly fell for the industry, the region, and eventually for each other.

As their careers progressed, each traveled across hemispheres, gaining experience by chasing harvests while staying connected through handwritten notes.

While in Paris in 2012, they eloped.

Building Lahoma

Through all their travels, the Finger Lakes kept pulling them home.

‘There was a lot of interesting energy and evolution happening. It was still a real underdog of a region, and to be here was a choice,’ explains Russell, who settled as lead winemaker for Red Newt Cellars on Seneca Lake.

Hoyle took the reins of winemaking at Hosmer Winery on Cayuga.

‘There’s an excitement you can’t replicate going to a region that already has the accolades,’ he continues.

‘Getting to demonstrate and earn those accolades for an underdog region is really enriching.’

Hoyle shares the ambition: ‘I want to make the best wines of the region. That is the end goal.’

Their work is heavily influenced by Austria and Germany, especially the idea of Grosses Gewächs, given they both work with distinguished vineyards.

Russell’s work at Red Newt introduced him to Ken and Harlan Fulkerson, the original farmers behind Lahoma Vineyards.

Once planted with apples, pears, peaches, and cherries, the celebrated vineyard is now 22.2ha of vinifera and hybrid grapes, including Riesling, Cabernet Franc, Gamay, Grüner Veltliner, Chardonnay, and the first commercial planting of Scheurebe in New York.

High on a knoll

Within the parcel sits a notable 0.8ha plot of land named The Knoll, known for its rare sandstone soils and unique expression in the glass.

Russell has sourced fruit from this block for over a decade, crafting structured, muscular, and textural Rieslings that earned him a devoted following.

As the wines gained traction, so did the property, with Russell proudly touring the vines with journalists and buyers.

The Fulkersons quietly took note and secretly designated Russell and Hoyle as a potential succession plan.

The offer came in 2022 when Russell called the Fulkersons in search of Chardonnay. There was none, but they had a counteroffer: the farm itself.

Hoyle, who calls herself Russell’s co-conspirator, could see his vision: ‘At the end of the day, the deep trust we have for one another is what’s guided a lot of our decisions.’

They closed on the property in April 2023.

A frosty beginning

Within a month of closing, an unprecedented frost decimated half their crop. It was a once-in-50-year event.

Russell couldn’t sleep as temperatures dipped overnight. He got to the farm at sunrise to find the Fulkersons already there.

‘The plan was to sell 95% of the crop, and keep a few tons to tinker with. But, we knew we had to start a winery and make a new business plan to save the farm.’

They were more than ready. They already had the name. They had the label artist, Christi Lopez, whom Hoyle found on Instagram and bookmarked for this moment.

And, they quickly learned the region had their backs: neighbors offered unclaimed fruit, and Harlan Fulkerson even personally advocated for them at the bank, noting that you can’t predict the weather.

‘You can’t do it alone,’ Hoyle smiles. That winter, Apollo’s Praise launched their Wine & Glee Club and Skurnik Wines added the brand to their portfolio – the first and only brand contracted without a tasting.

The wines posted some of the highest scores in the region. Within three months, their inventory was completely sold out.

A warmer future ahead

Three years in, and the Apollo’s Praise team remains busy. They’ve since purchased the 1850s farmhouse next door, which houses their offices, a hosting space, and a seasonal Airbnb.

In the cellar, Russell and Hoyle operate on a 60/40 split, respectively – each producing their own wines that work in concert across the full portfolio.

‘We did not want to work together–especially in production,’ laughs Russell, though they have one exception: a single wine called Lovejoy: a blend of Chardonnay, Grüner Veltliner, and Riesling grown on The Knoll.

They’ve also built a company culture that reflects everything ‘Glorious Apollo’ promises. Alongside Hoyle’s joyful zines are Russell’s inspired music pairings on the back of every label.

General Manager Sarah Tuttle leads a small team that they call smart and quirky. Staff are given room to be fully themselves.

‘Sometimes it seems very crazy that the universe just lets us do this,’ says Tuttle.

That permission is not accidental, but deliberate. ‘I have an open door to anyone who wants to work hard. I’ll give people a shot because a lot of people wouldn’t do that for me,’ says Hoyle.

‘It’s important to get new voices at the table every time.’

Russell sees the same opportunity through the wine itself: ‘How do you get more people to love wine? It’s a really simple answer. Make exciting wine at a price point people can afford.’

Three tiers of wines are currently offered, ranging from approachable offerings under £20 to small-production single-vineyard bottlings that can command £100 and above.

From the outside looking in, Apollo’s Praise is more than a winery. It is the culmination of Hoyle and Russell’s hard work and preparation for this particular moment.

From chasing harvests and trading handwritten letters, to starting a brand authentic in its representation of the duo, it all folds into something that feels less like a business plan and more like a calling.

As the lyrics of Glorious Apollo go, they are giving and partaking in equal measure – and it seems the Finger Lakes are singing back.

Apollo's Praise wines

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During my workday I confess to occasionally procrastinating and daydreaming.

Being a wine lover, much of this idle time is spent shopping for wine to have at home, since at the end of a long day writing about wine, I love to unwind with a glass of the same.

Each wine that I drink at home is bought with a different audience in mind. The most important audience is my wife, and I cook for her most evenings.

Home comforts

It's not always elaborate, and at least once a week, it is a simple roast chicken and salad. It's important to have a workhorse wine to pair with a frequent meal.

This week, it has been a delicious white Burgundy for which I paid the princely sum of $15. The wine was Domaine Thevenet Mâcon-Pierreclos 2023, made from grapes grown at an elevation of 350 metres, and vinified without oak.

The site and the winemaking deliver a wine of almost shocking purity. Even in the warm 2023 vintage, there was an abundance of lemony fruit, a hint of minerality, and no heaviness at all.

This uncomplicated, everyday wine is delicious on its own but also stands up to food.

Host with the most

When friends come over, an côte de boeuf is another favourite – a double-thick, bone-in rib of beef, roasted in the oven with root vegetables and served with haricots verts.

If my friends are knowledgeable about wine, I will reach for something from a ‘name’ producer. A recent success was the Passetoutgrain ‘l’Exception’ from Domaine Michel Lafarge.

The grapes are from Gamay and Pinot Noir vines planted together in the same plot, nearly 100 years ago, between Volnay and Meursault, which the Lafarge family farms biodynamically.

The extraction is gentle, and the wine is aged in well-used casks, yet they coax a wine of resonance and depth from the old vines that goes beyond its regional appellation and makes for a memorable meal, all for $32.

On the town

As a New Yorker, I also love dining out. One of my favourite venues with wine friends is a Cantonese restaurant in Chinatown called Wu's Wonton King.

Proprietor Derek Wu has made a specialty of wonton soup and fresh seafood, much of which comes from the meticulously clean tanks lining the walls.

Live king crab, sea eels, lobster, and steamed whole fish all make an appearance, along with the occasional roast suckling pig.

Cuisine this varied demands a versatile wine, and I will often choose a dry Riesling.

Recently, I have been regaling my friends with magnums of J.B. Becker Wallufer Walkenberg Auslese Trocken 2015, which is just beginning to hit its stride, redolent of apricots, lemon peel, and floral notes, and something deeper as well – a hint of earth and iodine, a suggestion of petrol and funk.

With Auslese-level ripeness fermented to dryness before long ageing in neutral casks, this Rheingau beauty shows both power and finesse, transforming a trip to Chinatown into a festive meal.

See what other bottles Charles is drinking at home each week on his website here.

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Thierry Meyer, Vincenzo Arnese and Claire Thevenot MS tasted 81 wines, with 2 Exceptional, 8 Outstanding and 54 Highly recommended

Alsace grand cru Riesling: Panel tasting scores

81 wines tasted

Exceptional 2

Outstanding 8

Highly recommended 54

Recommended 14

Commended 3

Fair 0

Entry criteria: producers and UK agents were invited to submit their dry Riesling wines from any Alsace grand cru, from both the 2012 and 2022 vintages

Terroir and temperature to the fore

This was a highly successful tasting in which 79% of the entries scored 90 points or more, including two Exceptional wines (see recommendations, below), and an impressive 22 scored 93-94pts.

The high scores were evenly distributed between the two vintages: 2022 and 2012. The vintages’ distinct climatic characters were on show, as well as strong terroir typicity from certain grands crus – it was an insight into how different terroirs performed across different climatic conditions.

And while reputed growers produced wonderful wines in both vintages, the tasting showed that lesser-known houses also produced very good, more affordable wines.

In the hot 2022 vintage, hilltop vineyards and marl-based terroirs were particularly successful.

Grands crus such as Furstentum, Rangen, Schlossberg and Zinnkoepflé, with areas at higher elevations, up to 400m or more, were less affected by the heat.

Most wines with character from this vintage are already drinking well. In contrast, 2012 was cooler and more classic, and only wines from fully ripened fruit have evolved positively.

‘The quality across both vintages was remarkable’

While several wines with a straightforward Riesling expression had already begun to fade and simply tasted like ‘old Riesling’, those that had achieved full ripeness continued to display great character, with the added aromatic complexity that comes from ageing.

As Claire Thevenot MS pointed out: ‘Alsace grand cru wines must possess a combination of terroir minerality and fruit from the grape itself; a balance of tension and fruit is key to their ageing potential.’

‘The quality across both vintages was remarkable,’ said fellow taster Vincenzo Arnese. ‘The wines showed excellent drinkability and highlighted the enormous potential of the Alsace grand cru appellation.’

Furstentum, Hengst, Kitterlé, Rangen and Schlossberg are among the most renowned of the 51 Alsace grands crus, known for their distinctive terroir character. Some of the best producers showcased this mineral character in both vintages.

Overall, if the varietal Riesling aspect dominates the wine, it may be advisable to consume them relatively quickly.

The judges

Alsace grand cru Riesling 2022 and 2012 panel tasting results:

Wines were tasted blind

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Try our Riesling wine quiz

Riesling day is designated 13 March by Wines of Germany, and so we have created an introductory Riesling wine quiz in celebration of this lauded grape variety.

Riesling can arrive in your glass in many guises, not least on a spectrum from dry to sweet, and is particularly well-loved for its ability to reflect terroir.

Top wines from the best sites can be particularly long-lived, and sommeliers have long cherished Riesling's food pairing potential.

Get to know more about Riesling with our 10-question quiz below.

Related articles: More wine quizzes

The Große Gewächs (GG) of the VDP – an association of 200 of Germany’s leading wineries – represents the highest quality wine made in Germany today.

These are the finest dry wines made from the country’s top-ranked vineyards made to stringent regulations.

Harvest yields are capped at 50 hectolitres per hectare, though in practice they are usually much lower, and hand harvesting is mandatory.

These are only the basic requirements, without even considering the experience, commitment and expertise of the winemakers behind these wines.

All of this comes at a price: the average GG costs around €49 per bottle. However, wines from some estates command several hundred euros per bottle and are sold exclusively by subscription to a loyal customer base.

Risk versus reward

The figures on a GG’s price tag can therefore be viewed from two perspectives – as a price or as a value. The latter increases with a winery’s reputation, its image and the loyalty of customers who secure their allocation year after year.

People tend to stick with what they know and avoid risk, and many are willing to pay a premium for that reassurance.

At the same time, those who have the courage to try something new are often rewarded.

Many VDP members produce wines that remain undervalued, particularly in relation to their quality and price. A number of family-run estates have recently passed into the hands of a new generation whose education and international experience are bringing fresh momentum to these wineries – though this still needs to be recognised by consumers and critics alike.

One example is Weingut Kranz in the Pfalz, where son Xaver has been working alongside his father Boris since 2023.

It would be presumptuous to speak of second-tier wineries. If anything, that perception applies more to visibility than to quality. Sebastian Schäfer of Weingut Joh. Bapt. Schäfer in the Nahe, for instance, is naturally reserved and takes a discreet approach to marketing.

Yet in Wiesbaden – where the annual GG release tasting is held – he has once again demonstrated that his dry GG wines rank among the finest, even if they are not among the most expensive.

Here are five GGs that won’t break the bank yet promise a richly rewarding tasting experience.

Five great value Grosses Gewächs to try

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For Austrians and Germans, and a great number of the people who live there, it is the ‘Südtirol’ – the southern province of the Tyrol.

For Italians, it is the ‘Alto Adige’, the Upper Valley of the river Adige.

This bilingual province on the border with Austria is a meeting place of cultures created by the twists and turns of history.

What is now the Trentino-Alto Adige region spent more of the last 200 years of its history under Austrian rule than Italian, and it was only after the defeat of the Austrio-Hungarian Empire in WWI that it was incorporated into Italy.

Not least of the influences of its cultural heritage regard the wine production of this fascinating border area.

Grapes of northern European origin grow alongside international and local varieties; barriques coexist with giant casks with elaborate carved heads; and in many cellars the chief winemaker still retains the title of ‘Kellermeister’.

The wine growing areas of the Alto Adige stretch north from the border with the neighbouring Trentino in the shape of a letter ‘Y’.

The lower part, the Bassa Atesina, follows the valley of the Adige to Bolzano, where viticulture branches northeast into the Isarco Valley towards Bressanone, and northwest past Merano, into the Venosta Valley.

Jigsaw puzzle

The umbrella Alto Adige DOC covers all 5,850 hectares of the province, with important DOC sub-zones for Terlano, Santa Maddalena, Valle Isarco and Val Venosta, while the pale red wines of Caldaro/Kaltersee have a denomination all of their own.

Vineyards stretch from around 250 metres above sea level to the upper slopes of the valley sides, reaching elevations of over 1,000 metres above-sea-level in places.

The climate is sunny, and warmer than you might expect – July temperatures are higher in Bolzano than Palermo! – but with the extreme day/night excursions typical of mountain regions.

The soil map of the province is a highly-coloured jigsaw puzzle which defies close description, but the three basic types are the Dolomitic limestone of the Adige valley, soils of volcanic origin around Bolzano, and the coarse, sandy quartz, slate and mica of weathered native rock in the Isarco and Venosta valleys.

Twenty varieties

Alto Adige grows 20 DOC-recognised varieties, 11 white and five red.

The principle international white grapes, Pinot Grigio, Chardonnay, Pinot Bianco and Sauvignon, are distributed pretty much across the whole of the province, with characters which respond to the different terroirs.

Pinot Bianco/ Weissburgunder

Of all the international varieties, Pinot Bianco is the one most closely associated with the Alto Adige.

It can be soft and round with yellow apple and floral aromas on the lower slopes of the Bassa Atesina, and intensely dry and minerally in the high vineyards of Appiano and at Terlano, the top two villages for the variety.

Sauvignon Blanc

Similarly, Sauvignon can be rich and fleshy around Caldaro, and crisp and zingy at Cortaccia and in the Val Venosta.

Gewürztraminer

Of the aromatic varieties, Gewürztraminer does not move far from its home in the village of Tramin, where styles range from off-dry to full-on sweet and luscious.

Sylvaner

In the Valle Isarco, Sylvaner has body and richness of aroma which distance it from the more familiar, lighter styles of Alsace.

Grüner Veltliner

Also in the Valle Isarco, Grüner Veltliner has the power and ageing potential of its top Austrian counterparts, and there is also a tiny production of the appetisingly peachy Schiave/ Riesling crossing, Kerner.

Riesling

Val Venosta is the go-to destination for steely, refined Riesling in Alto Adige.

Pinot Noir/ Blauburgunder

Among the international red varieties, there are individual examples of imposing Cabernet and Merlot in the lower valley of the Adige, but it is the far more widely planted Pinot Noir/ Blauburgunder that has made its name in the province for wines with very pure varietal character.

The longest established sites are on the eastern slopes of the valley, which include the renowned vineyards of Mazon.

The local Vernatsch/ Schiava and Lagrein may come second behind Pinot Noir in terms of surface area under vine, but they are two of the great resources of the province and both give their best in specific sites.

Vernatsch/ Schiava

Vernatsch is the grape of the Kaltersee/ Caldaro DOC, where it makes delicious cherry- and violet-scented wines with a delicate almondy finish.

The other classic growing area is above Bolzano at Santa Maddalena. The wines here often have a dollop of Lagrein in the blend, which makes them a little darker and more structured than those of Caldaro; think Moulin-a-Vent, not so much for the aromatic profile but for style and drinkability.

Lagrein

Lagrein, on the other hand, is a much more robust proposition.

Its family tree includes Teroldego and Syrah, and it shows in the inky, glass-staining colour and chunky tannins.

Lagrein needs heat and well-drained soils, and its traditional home is just outside Bolzano, in the garden suburb of Gries.

Reinvention

The Alto Adige has a tradition of cooperative winemaking that goes back to the 19th century. Its 12 top quality, highly efficient cooperatives collect grapes from 4,800 small-scale growers and today account for around 70% of the provincial production.

The remaining 30% is made by long established private houses and in lesser – but increasing – amounts by small independent estates. Membership of the ‘Vignaioli Alto Adige’ association which represents the category has grown to over 100 in recent years.

Winemaking in the Alto Adige has seen perhaps the most radical transformation of any region in Italy. The province today is universally recognised for the white wines which constitute 65% of its production, but historically red wines dominated.

Up until the 1970s, Vernatsch occupied almost 70% of the total surface area and monopolised planting in the villages of the Bassa Atesina.

Vineyards were heavily cropped, much of the wine was sold in bulk, and although the arrival of the DOC in 1975 improved quality, the wines of the time were light and very simple.

Change began in the 1980s, and in the years that followed the Alto Adige basically reinvented itself. The drivers of the revolution were the cooperatives.

Legendary Kellermeisters like Hans Terzer at San Michele, Sebastian Stocker at Terlano, and Willi Sturz at Tramin began to impose quality in the vineyards and craft premium wines in the cellar, the likes of which had never been seen in the province before.

The quality of winemaking across the province today is high, although at times you feel it risks overshadowing the sense of place.

Many of the top selections are concentrated, full-bodied wines with bold fruit and aromas which owe more than a glance towards international styles.

Clarification or complication?

The Alto Adige’s newly revealed UGA (Unità Geografiche Aggiuntive) zoning, which comes into effect with the 2024 vintage, aims to put the focus back on terroir and give some order to the ampelographical wealth and diversity by designating sites for specific grapes varieties.

The Mazon UGA, for example, is reserved for Pinot Noir; Gries-Moritzing for Lagrein; and UGAs at over 900 metres above-sea-level at Appiano and Magrè are created for Muller Thurgau.

In other instances, the system is a victim of the province’s eclectic traditions. There are cases where up to five white, red and aromatic varieties share the same UGA.

It is hard to imagine that grapes with such different characters can express the identity of a terroir.

Time will tell, as the wines come out over the next two years, whether the 86 new UGAs will clarify or further complicate the task of grasping the intricacies of the Alto Adige.

However it unfolds, there will always be much to enjoy in this bountiful province.

Below is a selection of two-dozen of my top wines from the current vintages tasted at the Alto Adige Wine Summit held in Bolzano in September this year.

Pinot Bianco was the star among the white varieties, but Sauvignon is right up there too, and I also loved Sylvaner from the Valle Isarco.

As for the reds, there was Pinot Noir for ageing, Santa Maddalena and Caldaro for drinkability, and if you are looking for something weightier, Lagrein wins the medals as the authentic Alto Adige red wine experience.

Expert-rated Alto Adige: 24 to try

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Seven wine styles to drink with pork:

White wine

• Riesling
• Viognier
• Chenin Blanc

Red wine

• Sangiovese (Chianti Classico)
• Mencia
• Grenache / Garnacha (red or rosé)
• Gamay (Beaujolais)

Decanter Premium is the ideal last-minute gift for wine lovers!

Is red or white wine best with pork?

Pork is quite a versatile meat that can match brilliantly with both red and white wines – not to mention orange wine – depending on what you’re cooking or eating. 

Try Riesling white wines or juicy reds with relatively high acidity to cut through the fat content of roast pork belly, or comforting Grenache-led red blends with midweek bangers and mash.

Tuscany’s Sangiovese-fuelled reds, with their balance of structure, wild berry fruit and acidity, can be delicious with a porchetta-style roast or slow-cooked pork shoulder at the dinner table. 

‘Italian reds always have that wonderful acidity that’s perfect with pork,’ wrote Decanter food and wine expert Fiona Beckett in this festive pairings piece.

Food and wine pairing principles

Food and wine pairing has been the subject of debate among wine writers. While proponents outline certain principles, personal taste is hugely important in this arena.

Even classic wine styles may vary between individual producers, but experimenting with different combinations and trying new bottles can be part of the fun.

When it comes to choosing a wine to pair with pork dishes, Jean-Baptiste Lemoine, deputy director of food and beverage at The Goring hotel in London, previously told Decanter it’s important to consider:

• the cut of the pork;
• the way it’s cooked;
• the sauce you are serving it with

Matthieu Longuère, a master sommelier and the wine development manager at Le Cordon Bleu London culinary school, told Decanter in 2024. ‘Whatever the meat is, it depends what you do with it.’

Think about matching the intensity of the wine with that of the dish, as well as any acidity and sweetness brought by ingredients in the meal.

Wine with pork belly and suckling pig

For tender, melt-in-the-mouth suckling pig, Lemoine advised drinking lighter styles of red. These include Spanish Mencia, Nerello Mascalese from Sicily, Pinot Noir from cooler regions or Chilean Carménère.

He also recommended Riesling with a touch of sweetness. This can be a classic with pork belly, too.

‘Roast pork belly works best with a wine that has a high level of acidity plus a touch of sweetness,’ wrote Fiona Beckett, naming 25 top food and wine pairings.

Germany is renowned for top Riesling wines, from dry styles to varying sweetness levels. Great Rieslings are also found in Alsace and the US Finger Lakes area, as well as parts of Austria, Australia, New Zealand and Canada – to name a few sources.

Flavours in the dish can help to lead your wine choice, too.

Apricots in this cider vinegar-roasted pork belly recipe ‘would lead me in the direction of Viognier rather than Riesling’, Beckett noted. 

In a Decanter ‘perfect pairing’ article for chestnut-stuffed pork fillet, she said: ‘Given the sweetness from the chestnuts, prunes and redcurrant jelly, I’d go for a wine that has a touch of sweetness itself. [For example] Alsace or New Zealand or Oregon Pinot Gris, or an old-vine Chenin Blanc.’

Wines to drink with a roast pork

‘Roast pork calls for something that combines richness with acidity, whether it’s white or red,’ Rhône expert Matt Walls previously told Decanter.

For white wine lovers, ‘Condrieu [Viognier] can be a brilliant match for pork roasted with herbs like Oregano or Marjoram,’ said Walls, who is Decanter’s Rhône correspondent and a contributing editor.

He also advised considering fresher styles of Chardonnay, as well as Chenin Blanc from either the Loire Valley or South Africa.

Tuscan reds, such as Chianti Classico or the vaunted wines produced around the hilltop town of Montalcino, can be delicious with a herby pork roast, or a porchetta-style festive dish – as previously noted. 

Walls pointed to Grenache-led wines, as well as Pinot Noir from warmer climates. Grenache is known as Garnacha in Spain, and stole the show in a Decanter panel tasting of red wines from Aragón last year.

Wine to drink with pork sausages

Walls returned to the Grenache theme when considering a wine for pork sausages. ‘For a classic bangers and mash, I tend to reach for a young Grenache-based wine like a southern Rhône.’

Classic blends of Grenache, Syrah (Shiraz) and Mourvèdre – and variations on the theme – are produced in many regions, from the Rhône and Languedoc-Roussillon in France to parts of South Australia and California.  

In a similar vein, the Carignan from Languedoc-Roussillon featured in the list below promises to enhance comforting bangers and mash on an autumnal evening, wrote Decanter’s David Williams in his recent review.

Other options include Gamay-based Beaujolais Cru, which can also make a great wine match for traditional Christmas ham. 

Don’t ignore rosé wines or orange wines at the dinner table, either.

Dry rosé wines could be a good bet for BBQ pork, whether pulled or cooked as a chop, said Lemoine. However, the meat might overpower some of the more delicate styles.

Decanter’s Williams recently recommended this budget-friendly, off-dry orange wine led by Grüner Veltliner. ‘A cushion of sweetness makes this a great match for spicy pork dishes,’ he wrote.

Watch out for too much oak in some wines

Beware of wines with prominent oak flavours when it comes to some pork dishes. 

Oak in wine can be tricky with sweet and sour pork, for example, said Longuère at Le Cordon Bleu London. 

‘The oak is quite bitter, quite smoky. If you have something sweet, it tends to make it taste quite metallic. And if you have something quite high in acidity, it clashes.’

Great wine with pork: Inspiration from our experts

The following wines have all been tasted by Decanter’s experts and include bottles at a range of prices.

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You love wine. You love music. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have the perfect playlist for what’s in your glass?

You might ask, how could any musical recommendation be anything other than personal and subjective?

Stay with me: There is research. Even this sceptical writer with a high-tech background focused on data-driven results has been surprised by what the research data show.

Read Susan R Lin MW’s research on music and wine

Why music and wine? There is nothing like the transporting magical experience of listening to music that resonates deeply.

Wait, there is! You know when it happens: You taste a wine and something happens within you. A strong feeling, a long ago memory, something you can’t quite name surfaces. Suddenly you are on a journey to the past. It is visceral and emotional.

Music is my constant. Since my childhood I listened, I trained, I performed. I still do. Wine fulfils a similar passion, academically and spiritually. Their synergies and wonderful sensorial differences led me to pursue a Master of Fine Arts in piano and musicology, as well as the Master of Wine.

Naturally I had to explore any effects of music on the sensory experience of wine tasting for my Master of Wine Research Paper. What I share with you here is based on my own research, combined with the body of research from other academics.

A quick primer: Music comprises elements, and these were found to have a statistically significant effect on taste perception: pitch (high-low), tempo (fast-slow), timbre (sharp-round) and articulation (dynamic-smooth).

Similarly, wine has sensory characteristics: acidity or freshness, fruitiness, richness, complexity, and for sparkling wines, effervescence.

Despite music and wine being disparate sensory realms, their effects can be strikingly similar.

We often characterise both music and wine with such words as delicate, powerful, vibrant and so on. The combination of these components lend music and wine their overall feel and emotional potential.

The wine playlists: six to try

Research shows that we make intuitive associations between musical elements and taste sense – for instance, high pitch associates with acidity; low pitch can evoke bitterness. This is an oversimplification, of course, and the myriad combinations of elements make for fascinating research.

Based on the research – and a convivial wink from yours truly – here are six playlists to jumpstart your own wine and music journey, each tailored to complement a different style of wine.

Music for light whites

Key features: Freshness, fruitiness, zestiness, delicacy

Musical elements to enhance the tasting experience: High pitch, mid-fast tempo, bright timbre, dynamic articulation; gentle, exciting character.

Click to listen – my starter playlist on YouTube:

• Celtic and/or Chinese harp and flute music
• Pharrell Williams: Happy
• Taylor Swift: Shake It Off
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Piano Concerto No 23, I Allegro

Music for rich whites

Key features: Oak/baking spices, broad/lush, creamy/textural

Musical elements: Lower pitch, slower tempo, rounder timbre, smoother articulation; layered textures, more powerful yet calm character.

Click to listen – my starter playlist:

• Carlos Santana: Samba Pa Ti
• Orville Peck: Daytona Sand
• Fujii Kaze: Garden
• Claude Debussy: Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun

Music for light reds

Key features: Fresh, fruity, bright, delicate floral, subtle earth notes

Musical elements: Mid-high pitch, mid-fast tempo, bright timbre, dynamic articulation; gentle, exciting character

Click to listen – my starter playlist:

• Toshiki Kadomatsu: If You (Wanna Dance Tonight)
• Ed Sheeran: Shape of You
• The Weeknd: Out of Time
• Johann Sebastian Bach: Keyboard Concerto No 4, 1st Movement

Music for rich reds

Key features: Texture (tannin shape), oak, intensity of fruit/earth notes, richness, complexity, density

Musical elements: Lower pitch, slower, stately tempo, rich timbre, smoother articulation, layered textures, powerful + calm or powerful + exciting

Click to listen – my starter playlist:

• The Doors: Riders on the Storm
• The Beatles: I Want You (She’s So Heavy)
• Astor Piazzolla: Libertango
• Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No 7, 2nd Movement

Music for sparkling wines

Key features: Effervescence, and depending on style (e.g. Prosecco versus a youthful Brut non-vintage Franciacorta versus a vintage Champagne) we use musical elements as levers to highlight the appropriate sensory characteristics in the wine.

Click to listen – my starter playlist for lighter sparkling wines:

• Any well-produced Eurodance or up-tempo 90s/00s pop!
• Earth, Wind, & Fire: September
• Dave Brubeck: Someday My Prince Will Come
• Camille Saint-Saëns: Carnival of the Animals, Finale

Click to listen – my starter playlist for richer, vintage-style sparkling wines:

• Bruno Mars: That’s What I Like
• David Guetta & Sia: Beautiful People
• Frédéric Chopin: Piano Concerto No1, 3rd Movement
• Johannes Brahms: Violin Concerto, 3rd Movement

Given the incredible wealth of music available, it was challenging to pare the lists down to a few selections – nonetheless, these lists demonstrate the power of different combinations of elements and character to bring a similar effect across varied musical genres.

Hopefully this has your creative juices flowing and you’ll be inspired to explore further!

Let your senses and emotions guide you. Allow yourself to sink into the feelings you experience. Be transported to someplace familiar – and perhaps to someplace new. Go forth and create your own music and wine adventure.

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German police in the Rheinhessen wine region were hunting for clues as to the whereabouts of stolen grapes after two producers reported harvest theft in the Gundheim district.

Nearly all of the ripe Riesling and Sauvignon Blanc grapes across an 8,000-square-metre area encompassing two vineyards have gone missing and are presumed to have been stolen by thieves.

Grape theft, either accidental or intentional, can be an issue for wineries on the eve of harvest.

Two independent winemakers have suffered economic losses of several thousand euros, said police for the German city of Worms, in the Rhineland-Palatinate region.

Picking teams discovered the grapes were missing when they arrived to begin their work, as was also the case in a high-profile theft in France’s Jura region last year.

Worms police described the illegal harvesting as ‘professional’ and appealed for local witnesses, although the theft may occurred at any time between 6 and 14 September.

Culprits must have used some kind of large vehicle, or several means of transport, to escape from the crime scene with their loot, police added, asking anyone with information to contact Alzey police station.

French news media also reported several cases of missing grapes, and complaints of theft, in Burgundy and Champagne in recent weeks.

France’s TF1 Infosaid some growers in Champagne have formed a group to guard vines at night, in addition to the regular vineyard patrols by the local Gendarmerie.

Earlier in September, two winemakers in Burgundy’s Meursault appellation said small portions of their 2025 vintage were missing, reported France 3.

Domaine Vincent Latour was one of those affected, posting photos on Facebook at the end of August alongside the comment, ‘When you arrive to harvest your parcel [of vines] and it’s already harvested’.

Cécile Latour, of the Domaine, told France 3 that around 2.8 tonnes of Chardonnay went missing, equivalent to 1,200 bottles, and that the team had initially thought it was an accident but now believe the grapes were stolen.

Mistakes can happen, particularly where vines with multiple owners are close together.

In another case, the news outlet said a winery in Pommard thought one of its parcels had been stolen before a neighbour got in touch to apologise for a GPS location error. An amicable exchange of grapes was agreed, it said.

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Ernst ‘Erni’ Loosen has officially launched his Perron de Mypont project in the heart of Burgundy, featuring regional bottlings plus village-level and premier cru wines from different parts of the Côte d’Or.

Loosen is best-known for producing outstanding Riesling wines, predominantly at Dr. Loosen estate in Germany’s Mosel valley, but he described the winemaking venture in Burgundy as a dream come true.

Perron de Mypont is based at the Vieux Château de Puligny-Montrachet, after Loosen acquired the east wing in 2019 and also created a négociant company.

He has been working with long-time partner Manoël Bouchet, as well as local growers in some of the Côte d’Or’s best-known areas.

Wines under the Perron de Mypont banner have been split into two segments, and the first releases will be available to consumers in the US in May 2025, said the partners.

A ‘Maison’ tier includes wines ‘sourced through the traditional Burgundy négociant system’ and features Bourgogne AOC Chardonnay and Pinot Noir from the 2022 vintage.

An ‘Edition’ tier represents a ‘parcellaire’ approach. It focuses on specific vineyard sites, or ‘climats’, and partnerships with individual growers, who have matured the wines in their own cellars. 

‘I fell in love with Burgundy about 50 years ago, during a winemaking internship there,’ said Loosen, a previous recipient of Decanter’s Hall of Fame award. 

‘I was immediately struck by the similarities between Riesling and Pinot Noir, which are both cool-climate varieties that can make truly profound wines that develop beautifully with age.’ 

Initial ‘Edition’ releases will include a 2022-vintage Meursault and also a Meursault Premier Cru Perrières – a site sometimes described as Meursault’s unofficial grand cru.

There is also a 2022-vintage Volnay and 2023-vintage Gevrey-Chambertin, plus a 2019-vintage Vougeot Premier Cru and a 2022-vintage Vosne-Romanée Premier Cru Les Suchots.

Production is relatively small, as is often the case in Burgundy.

Perron de Mypont produced 300 bottles of its Vosne-Romanée Premier Cru Les Suchots 2022, and 600 bottles of the Gevrey-Chambertin 2023, according to technical sheets on the Loosen Bros USA website.

In the Maison division, a technical sheet said 1,000 12-bottle cases of Bourgogne AOC Chardonnay have been made in the 2022 vintage, from ‘selected vineyard parcels in in the classic Chardonnay areas of the Côte de Beaune, Côte Chalonnaise, and Chablis’. 

Loosen’s Perron de Mypont venture is one of several new or recently-expanded Burgundy wine projects to watch.

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Rats have been lumbered with a terrible reputation ever since they spread the Black Death back in the 14th century.

They’ve been consigned to the shadows for hundreds of years, lurking in sewers and scraping by on whatever they can scavenge from the streets.

However, they could be in line for an exciting career change after a group of rats aced an in-depth wine sniffing test.

Researchers at four universities (London, Lincoln, Trento and Vienna) joined forces to see if rats could distinguish between the aromatic profiles of two wine varieties.

They placed nine rats in test chambers and encouraged them to sniff wines: four Sauvignon Blancs, from France and Chile, and four Rieslings, sourced from Germany, France and Austria.

The researchers gave the rats a treat when one wine was present, so they learned to associate a particular aromatic profile with a reward.

After sniffing a wine, the rat had to use its nose to poke a particular lever. If the rat guessed correctly, it would receive food, while an incorrect response would result in a timeout penalty.

Training continued until the rats were getting 80% of their responses correct for three consecutive sessions.

They were then given an exam. The rats returned to the chamber, where they began sniffing wines, some of which they had been trained on, and others that were new.

The results were emphatic: they nose-poked the correct lever 94% of the time on wines they had been trained on, and 65% of the time on new wines made from the same grape varieties.

Researchers wrote that the results ‘indicate that a nonhuman mammal can discriminate between complex odour categories. This finding is consistent with the idea that many nonhuman mammals have olfactory abilities that match or exceed those of humans’.

It suggests that rats could come out of the sewers and move into the restaurant business, serving as a new breed of elite sommeliers.

However, while most of the participants dazzled with their olfactory prowess, a rat called Peanuts let the side down. He completed the training phase, but he struggled when sniffing new wines during the testing, so he’s not in line for a top job just yet.

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Given the glamour that surrounds the world of fine wine, it can be all too easy to forget that wine is an agricultural product, and that, as such, it’s subject to the vagaries of nature.

Each year is a gamble for wine producers, with a spread bet that the combination of weather, yield and disease pressure will pay out in their favour.

Stephen and Prue Henschke, fifth-generation producers of some of South Australia’s most iconic wines, are only too familiar with the annual roll of the dice.

Scroll down for the Henschke 2021 single-vineyard releases

Production volumes of all of their single-vineyard Shirazes were way down on average – and in some cases non-existent – in the challenging 2019 vintage.

This was the result of a combination of spring frosts and a hot, dry summer, as well as bushfires in the Adelaide Hills.

Worse was to come in 2020, a vintage described by Stephen as, ‘an absolute disaster’.

He says: ‘We literally had vines with no grapes on them at all – we lost a whole vintage.’

A ‘fairy-tale vintage’

As a result the following year, 2021, which he describes as ‘a beautiful, fairy-tale vintage’, came as a huge relief. Volumes were not only back up to normal, but the quality of the wines is immediately apparent to all who taste them.

Stephen believes that the wines stand comparison with the stellar vintages of 1986, 2002, 2005 and 2015 – although, as ever, each vintage has its own particular character.

‘The unique thing about 2021,’ says Stephen, ‘is that it was one of the coolest growing seasons we’ve seen in 19 years. We only had three days over 30°C. In terms of vintage comparisons, it comes closest to 2002 and 2005, both of which were wonderful years.’

The weather conditions in 2021 almost seemed to be trying to make amends for the tribulations imposed on the Henschkes over the course of the previous couple of years. There was sufficient rainfall early in the growing season to nourish the vines, then just enough water stress after veraison to help create balance and concentration in the fruit.

Finally, the growing season culminated in an Indian summer, which allowed the wines to reach near-perfect levels of colour, aromatic richness, depth of flavour and balance.

Fine-tuning in the winery

As far as the Henschkes are concerned, great wines are not made in the winery, where very little has changed over the course of generations. There has, of course, been the odd tweak here and there.

For example, instead of crushing the fruit on arrival at the winery, the bunches are now passed through a de-stemmer and optical sorter. The family also employs a more efficient cooling system than was once the case.

The use of new oak has also decreased over time from around 25% to a figure closer to 5%. Stephen explains: ‘We want the vineyard to be the hero, and not the oak.’

In 2002 screwcaps were introduced as the closure of choice for most of the range.

Vineyard goals

Instead, the Henschkes believe that true greatness comes from a near-infinite capacity for taking pains in the vineyard. As the family’s viticulturist, this is Prue’s fiefdom.

Her work is largely about managing exposure, harnessing sunlight to ripen the grapes and not to burn them.

‘The idea,’ says Prue, ‘is to draw on the cooler light in the morning and then have a very shaded canopy facing the hot afternoon sun.’

She points out that they’re helped in their goal of capturing the essence of each vineyard by the age of their vines. The emblematic Hill of Grace Shiraz vineyard averages out at 85 years old, a relatively sprightly age when you consider that the oldest vines that go into the cuvee were planted in 1860.

‘The interesting thing with the old vines,’ she says, ‘is that they seem to be designed in such a way as to set the fruit up to have beautiful balance.

In the past four years we’ve been picking grapes with high acidities and low pH levels, so the wines almost make themselves.’

Vine age and complexity

The difference between the vines that go into Hill of Grace, and the younger vines from the same vineyard, planted in 1989 – and which are used to create the Hill of Roses Shiraz – is clear, according to Stephen.

‘The palate length [of Hill of Roses] is still building, as is the complexity compared to the old-vine wines,’ he says, adding: ‘The balance is coming into better focus.’ He believes it takes about 25 years for a vineyard to start showing some real complexity.

The truth is there’s no lack of complexity in any of the Henschkes’ single-vineyard wines; just the restrained elegance and precision that speaks volumes about Prue and Stephen’s intimate knowledge of their vineyards.

It also speaks of the confidence they have in the ability of those vineyards to reveal themselves in the glass.

Winemaking may always be a bit of a gamble, but it’s clear that the Henschkes hold many – if not all – of the cards.

First taste: Henschke new releases

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Riesling grows prolifically from Alsace and Austria to New York and New Zealand. Nowhere but Germany, however, does Riesling shine with such kaleidoscopic brilliance.

After all, Germany is considered by many to be the birthplace of Riesling. Historical accounts of Riesling’s exact origin vary, but undoubtedly, Germany is the heartland where this majestic grape has flourished for centuries.

The earliest recorded reference of Riesling in Germany was found on cellar logs dated 13 March 1435, a date that’s celebrated as Riesling’s unofficial birthday.

Riesling is the chameleon of the wine world, adopting a unique persona and style in every region it sets its roots. But only in Germany does Riesling unveil the full technicolour spectrum of its abilities.

A mirror to the exacting intricacies of German terroir, German Riesling ranges from bone dry, or trocken, to the barely sweet feinherb and decadently sweet. German Riesling triumphs in both still and sparkling ‘Sekt’ forms.

See German Riesling wine reviews by Decanter experts

German Riesling guide: Five key regions to know

Despite straddling the historic limits of cool-climate viticulture, Riesling has flourished in each of Germany’s 13 wine regions thanks to a complex interplay of sun exposure, topography and soils.

Mosel

The most iconic of all German Rieslings are those of the Mosel, a region where legendary producers like Willi Schaefer, Joh. Jos. Prüm, Zilliken and others are so abundant, that they’re seemingly ubiquitous.

Spine-tingling and often laser-light in expression, the wines of the Mosel are born out of a contrast of extremes. Despite an extremely northerly latitude (in wine region terms), the steep, south-facing slopes of the Mosel enjoy maximum exposure to the sun.

The craggy outcrops of shale covering the region’s most famous vineyards reflect sunlight and hold in heat.

‘The depth, complexity and lightness of wines from the Mosel, especially our Kabinett, is singular to Germany and the world,’ says Andreas Barth, who, with his wife Susanne, operates Weingut Lubentiushof in Niederfell, a winery that dates back to 1711.

Rheingau

The Rheingau’s historic reputation for Riesling of aristocratic pedigree far outsizes its surprisingly small vineyard size.

Vineyards of the Rheingau stretch along the northern banks of the Rhine and Main Rivers, tucked around the many castles and abbeys that dot the region. The south-facing vineyards tumble down gentle slopes towards the rivers and are protected from northerly winds by the Taunus mountains to the north.

Compared to the Mosel or Pfalz, the region enjoys a ripening period that starts earlier and extends late, explains Catharina Mauritz, the eighth-generation owner of Domdechant Werner in the village of Hochheim. The Riesling there is ‘elegant and filigreed’ with ‘acidity that’s not too harsh’, she suggests.

Dry, distinctly supple Riesling with focused minerality is characteristic, but the region is also renowned for complex expressions of botrytised sweet Riesling.

Rheinhessen

Rheinhessen is Germany’s largest wine region – a sunny, fertile expanse that was once an epicentre for the mass production of industrial sweet wines. Today, the region is far better known for the renegade producers of the 1990s who spearheaded a quality revolution there.

Historically, Rheinhessen’s best sites were concentrated in the red-sandstone soils of the Rheinterrasse (‘Rhine Terrace’) and the majestic Roter Hang (‘Red Slope’). Winegrowers like Gunderloch, St. Antony and Kühling-Gillot were largely responsible for resurrecting this region’s reputation and producing some of Germany’s most profoundly spicy, savoury expressions of Riesling there.

Meanwhile, a roster of star producers – Klaus-Peter Keller, Wittmann, Battenfeld-Spanier, Dreissigacker and others – have brought new attention to the gentle limestone hills of the Wonnegau in the south.

Pfalz

The Pfalz, which extends south of Rheinhessen to Germany’s border with Alsace in France, is one of Germany’s driest, warmest wine-growing regions.

The northern Mittelhaardt is the historic centre of the Pfalz. This is ‘where power players like Bassermann-Jordan, Dr Bürklin-Wolf, Müller-Catoir and Christmann command big prices for their ornate Rieslings’, says Evan Spingarn, a German wine specialist and portfolio manager for US importer, David Bowler Wine.

But, he adds, ‘the moral centre of the region lies a few miles north where producers like Koehler-Ruprecht [champions classically] barrel-aged… dry wines from loess and limestone’.

The Südliche Weinstrasse, or southern region of the Pfalz, is characterised by ‘warm breezes, sunshine and fruit trees [that] are as close to a Mediterranean vibe as Germany is ever likely to get’, Spingarn says, with leading producers including Ökonomierat Rebholz and Leiner.

Nahe

Tucked away in a pocket nearly enclosed by mountain ranges, the Nahe wine region is one of Germany’s smallest. While protected from harsh wind and rain, the region is often surprisingly cooler than vineyards in the Mosel or the Rheingau.

Riesling in Nahe shares a thrilling tendency towards focus and linearity but the region also boasts a wide range of soil types and an eye-opening diversity of Riesling styles.

The red slate soils of Monzingen in the warmer upper Nahe, for example, ‘offer more fruit and a sense of openness’, juxtaposed with ‘spice and piquant acidity’, says Werner Schönleber, who helms Emrich-Schönleber, his family winery.

Schönleber’s Riesling stands in bold contrast to the crystalline purity of Riesling sourced from the grey slate and volcanic rocks of Dönnhoff’s Hermannshöhle vineyard, or the chiseled, smoky minerality of Riesling from Schlossgut Diel’s Burgberg vineyard from the cooler lower Nahe region.

Away from these major regions, a new generation of winemakers in Sachsen and Saale-Unstrut – respectively Germany’s easternmost and northernmost wine regions, are worth watching closely.

Guide to reading a German Riesling wine label

Riesling famously enjoys a fervent following among sommeliers, critics and wine geeks alike. But for the everyday consumer or budding wine enthusiast, navigating through German Riesling labels can feel like a never-ending onslaught of unpronounceable quality classifications and vineyard designations.

Even distinguishing between a sweet or a dry German Riesling can overwhelm. At its most basic, wines labelled trocken are dry with little to no residual sugar. Feinherb or halbtrocken suggest wines that are just off-dry.

Even without familiarity with these terms, simply checking a Riesling’s alcohol content can provide significant insight. Typically, Riesling above 11.5% abv will taste dry. The lower the alcohol under 11.5%, the sweeter the wine will likely taste.

Traditionally, German Riesling was classified according to the Prädikate, designations indicating the ripeness levels of grapes at harvest regardless of how much sugar remained in wine after fermentation.

Starting with Kabinett, the spectrum swerved riper with late-harvested Spätlese and then Auslese. Riper still are wines made from botrytised grapes, such as the intensely sweet Beerenauslese and Trockenbeerenauslese.

Eiswein (or ice wine) indicates exceptionally sweet wines from grapes frozen on the vine until their sugars concentrate.

Today, the Verband Deutscher Prädikatsweingüter or VDP, a selective association of nearly 200 of Germany’s quality wine producers, uses the Prädikat system to classify only wines with sweetness.

But producers outside of the VDP may still use the Prädikat system to signify late-harvest grapes that were fermented into dry wines like the often-confusing Spätlese Trocken (‘late-harvest dry’).

Parallel to the traditional Prädikat, VDP producers have adopted a Burgundian model classifying wines according to the specificity of their origin.

Gutswein indicates good wines at the base of the VDP quality pyramid – akin to a regional Bourgogne. Ortswein equates to village wines.

Erste Lage, meaning first site, is comparable to the Burgundian premier cru. And finally, at the top of the quality pyramid are the Grosse Lage, or great-site wines, similar to the Burgundian grand cru.

Grosse Lage wines that are dry are specified as Grosses Gewächs, meaning great growths, or GG for short.

Many consumers assume that German Riesling is typically sweet. But as German taste preferences have swung drier and drier in the last few decades, an increasing majority of German Riesling today is actually dry.

At the pinnacle of prestige today are Germany’s super-premium, powerfully wrought GG bottlings. Yet for many veteran German wine devotees, it’s the much less expensive Ortswein (village) category that delivers the most revealing expressions of Germany’s diverse terroir.

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Expert’s Choice: US Riesling

‘The whole thing started in [19]99 when I was visiting Oregon’, says Ernst ‘Ernie’ Loosen, explaining the origin of the Eroica collaboration with Washington’s founding winery, Chateau Ste Michelle.

Having embarked on a joint venture with the Antinori family in 1995 at Col Solare on Red Mountain, Ste Michelle had shown an aptitude for international collaboration. As one of the largest producers of Riesling in the world, there seemed to be a natural synergy and collaborative opportunity between Ste Michelle and Loosen, the global spokesman for Germany’s iconic Riesling.

Seeing an opportunity in the northern reaches of America’s wine country for a grape of singular importance to his home region and Germany’s wine identity, Loosen made the first overtures.

He explains: ‘Kirk (Willey, CEO of Loosen Bros USA) and I wrote a four-page proposal and sent it to former [Ste Michelle] CEO Allen Shoup. He replied almost immediately and said, “let’s do it”.’

Notes and scores for vintages of Eroica below

Reclaiming Riesling

While Riesling was once the most expensive wine in the world, its reputation and pedigree had fallen on hard times.

‘I was a little frustrated with the state of Riesling in those days. Even Germany, in the 1980s and a little bit afterwards, I have to be honest, they pretty much [expletive] it up,’ Loosen admits. ‘A British journalist created this little booklet called “Super Plonk”. It was regularly that German Rieslings like Blue Nun, Black Tower, and Madonna would win that prize.’

‘It became known as cheap and sweet, and suddenly that became the reputation of Riesling,’ Loosen adds. ‘This was so crazy because, at one time, 100 years ago, Riesling was the most highly regarded, most expensive wine in the world, prized more than Burgundy. I knew there was nothing wrong with Riesling, but there was undeniably something wrong with the customer perception.’

Loosen thought that this collaborative opportunity would allow him and Chateau Ste Michelle to recast the image of Riesling in the single biggest wine market in the world, the US.

‘I thought, well, we Germans don’t seem to get it, so maybe this joint venture might help us re-establish this reputation here. The goal was to reinstate Riesling’s reputation and make the best Washington state Riesling we could. At that point, there wasn’t a global definition of Washington Riesling and I think Eroica helped establish that style,’ Loosen says.

Riesling in the desert

With only a few exceptions, grapes in Washington are primarily grown in a desert climate. This seems counterintuitive to the cool climate home of this delicate white grape.

‘We wanted the wine to be all about acidity; that’s the identity of Riesling, and we didn’t want it to go as sweet as we do in Germany. We landed on a style that we call feinherb in the very old days in Germany, a medium-dry style. The way my grandfather did it.’

The process has been an evolution. Changing the approach to viticulture has played a role in shaping the wines of the Eroica partnership in an effort to find a ‘sweet spot’ for a medium-dry wine in the desert.

‘When we first started, they were very proud of the Riesling they were producing from this place, Cold Creek Vineyard,’ Loosen remembers.

‘My god, it was like the hottest place you could possibly pick to grow Riesling. I got them to change that, and we’ve moved the production almost entirely to the Ancient Lakes area, which has a higher elevation and is much cooler. It’s one of Washington’s coolest appellations.’

Unique soils

The famous vineyards of the Mosel are known for their blue slates. In Eastern Washington and at the Ancient Lakes site, Evergreen Vineyard, there is a different stony composition to the soils, known as ‘caliche’.

A product of calcium carbonate bonding with other soil types, caliche forms a hard, white, impervious layer in the soil.

Ryan McAdams, vineyard manager for the Ste Michelle estates, explains: ‘There is a caliche layer throughout Evergreen; in some places, it’s just two to three inches, and in other places, it can be a few feet down. Caliche is a hard, solid layer of a rock-like material. We only get, say, eight inches of rain a year at Evergreen, but if you go out there in the spring, you’ll have standing water in the vineyard even if it hasn’t rained much because the caliche doesn’t let the water through.’

‘We have some soil diversity throughout the site, and the depth of the caliche can show up in the wines in different blocks of the vineyard. It helps to have that kind of diversity when we’re blending, giving us a palette of distinct flavour and aroma profiles to help us make our wine,’ McAdams concludes.

A range of styles

The main Eroica bottling has moved from a more Spätlese style in the first few years of release to today’s classic off-dry or feinherb style.

In addition, there is a range of Eroica bottlings from Eroica Gold, made in the Auslese style and the TBA or Trockenbeerenauslese bottling, known as Eroica Single Berry Select, fully botryised grapes, the Single Berry Select, sold in half bottles is Washington’s most expensive wine by volume. It’s a rare wine in the US.

In 2016, Eroica launched the XLC, a GG, or Grosses Gewäches-style bottling. Made in the traditional German style: ‘In 2016, I asked Bob Berthau, why aren’t we doing a dry wine in the style that my grandfather made,’ Loosen asked.

‘We use the exact same winemaking method we used historically, which I use for my GG wines today in the Mosel. This old technique of winemaking gives these wines an enormous ageing potential. We leave the wines on the lees for two years, and the result is stunning.’

Eroica: A selection of new and aged wines

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It’s the end of a long day. The sun is setting over the ocean in a smug riot of pastels. I’ve been bombarding Larry Cherubino with wine questions all day, so now opt for a different approach.

How would he describe his driving over the hundreds of kilometres we’ve travelled today from the Great Southern to Margaret River? He takes a steeling gulp of beer.

‘Erratic,’ he deadpans. Then breaks into a broad, winning grin.

See below for Peter’s notes and scores for Larry Cherubino wines

Erratic. It’s a fair summary. A somewhat jittery approach to both wheel and pedal has been noticeable. The towering aerial on the bonnet enables Cherubino to conduct non-stop calls (his wife, his colleagues, his estate agent).

Regular pit-stops range from showing me vineyards to foraging wheat and banksia flowers for decor at his restaurant.

Cherubino’s laid-back commentary provides the sound-track, covering everything from clonal diversity to getting locked out of his house (hence the estate agent). Peppering the commentary are phrases like ‘you gotta stick to your knitting’ and ‘far out!’

On a road trip, you get to know someone. Cherubino has a busy mind. His easy manner and self-deprecating charm are underpinned by a restless energy that can prove unsettling as well as engaging.

At times, his frustration bubbles over.

The evolution of Australian wine

‘Australian wine is as good as it’s ever been, but we’re just not getting the message out like we should,’ he retorts to a question. ‘At some point we need to stop selling ourselves short,’ he continues.

‘People have this concept of Australian wine [but] the whole industry is being redefined. You can’t jump a chasm in two leaps – we’ve just got to go for it, stick with it, and hopefully not go bust in the process!’

Add ambition into the mix. At which point we should probably take a step back to consider the bigger picture. Australian wine has had a rough time lately. Buffetings have come courtesy not just of the climate (floods, wildfires, frosts) but also markets.

China slapped 200%-plus tariffs on Australian wine imports from 2020-2024 over a wider diplomatic spat. The aura of relentless dynamism and momentum around Australian wine that captivated wine drinkers the world over seems to have lost some of its lustre.

And yet, as Cherubino points out, such sweeping generalisations belie the reality on the ground. Which is that, following on from the Australian wine boom of the late 20th century, the cheerful oceans of ‘sunshine in a glass’ have been swiftly followed by a revolution in the vineyards.

Once Aussie winemakers gleefully stuck two fingers up to stuffy Eurocentric notions of terroir, soils and appellations. But now the talk is all about how to craft unique wines from specific sites. Quality and diversity are at an all-time high.

‘Australian wine has evolved,’ reflects Cherubino. ‘Now we’re selling dirt. We talk less and less about technique. It’s all about the vineyard these days.’

Journey into wine

And this is a man who has lived the change. Originally trained in horticulture, Cherubino fell into wine in the early 1990s. He learned the importance of details and multi-tasking from French flying winemaker Jacques Lurton in Bordeaux – and beyond.

In Australia, he worked for Hardys and also Western Australian stalwart Houghton, famed for its historic White Burgundy label. Cherubino jokes that he’s made more ‘white burgundy’ than any Burgundian.

Although he was brought up in what he terms the ‘technical era’ of Australian wine, he now says: ‘I don’t make wine like that any more.’

Having set up his own wine company in 2004 with his wife Edwina, he farms around 230ha of vines in Western Australia: across Frankland River (120ha), Pemberton (70ha) and Margaret River (40ha).

Go west

With Australia’s shift to quality over quantity, Western Australia has grown in prominence. The region represents 3% by volume but 7% by value of Australia’s total crush, and has an outsize presence when it comes to the country’s upmarket wines.

When I ask Cherubino to summarise what wines from this part of the world offer, ‘clarity’ is the first word on his lips. This is followed by talk of the pristine environment and oceanic influence. ‘If you have to try too hard to grow something, it means you shouldn’t be doing it,’ he says.

‘Here there’s a bunch of varieties that we excel with, so don’t have to try too hard.’

Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon top the list of such varieties, particularly in Margaret River. You might add Pinot Noir in Pemberton, or Riesling in Great Southern.

As a region Great Southern is particularly hard to concisely encapsulate, given its diversity in climate, soil and human design. What’s more, it’s evolving.

Cherubino, for example, has planted varieties as diverse as Fiano, Arneis, Counoise, Touriga Nacional, Nebbiolo, Mencía and Grenache in Frankland River. He’s also road-testing different clones, for example of Chardonnay.

‘People say I’m wasting my time, but that 1-2% difference at the top end is all about genetics,’ he comments.

Winemaking philosophy

The questing mentality, a somewhat obsessive focus on detail, is very much part of the Cherubino approach. It’s what makes him a successful winemaking consultant around the world (though he does less of this now, tending to focus more on his own projects). It’s also timely given the way in which Australian wine is evolving.

So what’s his approach to the top-billing grapes? He’s dismissive of what he sees as the trend to ‘light-weighting’ Chardonnay. ‘The whole point of eating or drinking something is that it’s flavoursome,’ he argues.

‘Chardonnay must have flavour. There’s nothing better than biting into a tree-ripened piece of fruit that’s still got acidity, but it has flavour as well.’

All sides of Cabernet

And Cabernet? ‘We’ve got a real aversion to tannin, to wines with earthy, stony characters in Australia. But there’s good earth and bad earth,’ he explains. ‘We shouldn’t be afraid of showing that side of Cabernet.

A lot of people compare Margaret River Cabernet to Bordeaux – sometimes I think it’s got more in common with Bolgheri. If you look at the early Margaret River Cabs, they’re defined by this dusty red earth [character]. That’s what the soil’s like.’

As for how his winemaking has changed over time, he points to the importance of tasting widely, vine health and hard work. Talking Chardonnay, he says: ‘I don’t want to be the best in Western Australia, I want to compete with the best in the world.’

Is that a reality now, I ask? ‘I think we’re getting there. We need to be aware of what’s happening globally with wine.’ Is bravery needed? ‘The less you rely on techniques, the more exposed you are. If you’re gonna sing solo without any instruments, you’d better be good.’

A sustainable future

Sustainability is also on Cherubino’s agenda. His vineyards are certified carbon neutral. To take one example, he’s been working on improving soil structure by increasing organic matter. Soil carbon levels have duly risen from 2% to 6%.

The improved structure retains moisture better so he now uses 20% less water these days, a vital saving for a precious resource in Frankland River. ‘We’ve got better things to do with our water than selling wines below cost,’ he quips.

As for the future? In 2025, Cherubino is celebrating 20 years since the first harvest of his own project. With his two cellar doors in Margaret River, including a re-launched restaurant (Masseria: ‘elevated Italian’), a wine bar in Perth and importing business, plus his vineyard portfolio and global travel, he won’t be short of things to keep him busy.

He may describe his driving as erratic, but the word’s origins also conceal an intriguing nod towards wandering and adventure.

‘Anyone who owns a vineyard is a farmer,’ he rues. ‘And if you own a winery, you’re a fancy farmer. But not all of us are Jeremy Clarkson – we can’t all have a TV show and promote the hell out of ourselves.

We’re realists here in Western Australia. We’re pretty far from everything. We’ve just got to believe we’re making a great product – and then we’ve got to stick to our knitting.’

10 Larry Cherubino wines to try

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Far-flung from the western heartland of Germany’s better-known wine regions, Saale-Unstrut and Sachsen are respectively, its most northerly and easterly wine regions.

Saale-Unstrut, stretching above the northern 51st parallel – alongside London and Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan – teeters at the northern limits of quality viticulture. Sachsen, just two hours east and a touch south by car, extends as far east as Brandenburg at Germany’s border with Poland.

Together, these two small and isolated regions account for less than 1% of Germany’s total annual wine production.

Anna’s pick of nine wines to try from Sachsen and Saale-Unstrut below

Even Germans tend to express scepticism when asked about the wines here. There’s this narrative of the east that’s still shaded by the darkness of Communism, explains Matthias Hey, the winemaker of the family-owned Weingut Hey in Saale-Unstrut.

This is why visitors to these regions may be surprised to find that today, Saale-Unstrut and Sachsen are perhaps one of Germany’s most evocative and even avant-garde wine regions.

Certainly, not everything produced is exceptional. Combined, the regions boast only six members of the Verband Deutscher Prädikatsweingüter (VDP), the exclusive association of quality German wine producers.

But the overwhelmingly young, uniquely spirited generation of winemakers who lead Saale-Unstrut and Sachsen today are carving out an unexpectedly bold new chapter of German winemaking.

A region both young and old

Despite the northerly extremes, winegrowing thrives on the steep, south-facing slopes that rise out from river valleys here. Saale-Unstrut is nestled in the valleys of the Saale and Unstrut rivers between Weimar and Leipzig. Sachsen extends along the Elbe River, centred around the towns of Meissen and Dresden.

The climate is deeply continental marked by extreme winter cold and deadly spring frosts. But vines that survive the winter are rewarded with sun-drenched growing seasons marked by cool nights and some of the lowest precipitation levels in Germany.

As throughout Europe, winemaking in these regions likely spans at least a millennium but repeated wars and upheaval took a heavy toll on its development. Whatever quality viticulture survived phylloxera in the 19th century was effectively erased under the Soviet-backed East German regime.

By 1945, privately owned wineries had been consolidated into state-run cooperatives. To satisfy the demands of the Eastern Bloc, viticulture shifted from ancient single vineyards on labour-intensive terraced slopes to high-yielding, mechanised production of workhorse grapes like Müller-Thurgau.

‘The German Democratic Republic [GDR, the official name for East Germany] destroyed much of our history,’ explains Alexander Hey, Matthias’ husband. ‘It’s why, unlike everywhere else in Germany, ‘we don’t have [many] wineries that were founded in the 14th century.’

But the erasure of the past has served, paradoxically, to liberate these regions from the constraints and obligations of tradition too. Indeed, nearly every winemaker in this part of Germany is only a first or second-generation producer. Many of the best are barely 30 years old.

Sachsen

It was the passion and grit of trailblazers like Dr. Georg Prinz zur Lippe of Schloss Proschwitz who set the stage for quality viticulture in Sachsen in the aftermath of reunification.

Vineyards surrounding Proschwitz Castle, the ancestral seat of the aristocratic Lippe-Weissenfeld family had been cultivated by monks as early as the 12th century.

In 1945, Prinz zur Lippe’s parents were arrested and later expelled by the Soviet Army to the west. His family’s holdings were expropriated with no compensation.

Prinz zur Lippe, born after his family’s exile, was a successful management consultant in Munich but returned to Sachsen after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Piece by piece, he bought back his family’s derelict property and succeeded in building a modern, high-quality winery, today the largest privately owned in the eastern part of Germany.

While Prinz zur Lippe’s reclamation of his ancestral past is remarkable, more impactful, perhaps, is the catalytic role his investment played in paving the path for the future.

One of Sachsen’s most dynamic producers is Martin Schwarz who spent 16 years as Prinz zur Lippe’s winemaker. After obtaining a graduate degree at Geisenheim, he admitted a job in Sachsen wasn’t his first choice.

But Schwarz fell in love with the region’s steep granite slopes, its hidden single vineyards and the opportunity, ‘to start something new out of virtually nothing’.

Granite freshness

Historically, Sachsen and Saale-Unstrut were known predominantly for delicate white wines, sometimes quite thin, the product of much cooler climates and grapes like Müller-Thurgau, Traminer, Goldriesling or Elbling.

Hints of that classic style, crisp and easy drinking with bright acidity and delicate fruit flavours can still be evidenced to good effect in high-quality producers like Karl Friedrich Aust or Frédéric Fourré in Sachsen, explains Silvio Nitzsche, a sommelier and podcast producer in Dresden who has followed the evolution of these regions’ wines closely.

But Sachsen’s granite soils, a rarity in most of Germany, is expressive terroir for stylish, increasingly opulent expressions of varieties like Riesling, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris or Chardonnay.

And while limited in quantity, red varieties like Pinot Noir and Blaufränkisch have proven successful, and even some Nebbiolo thanks to Schwarz. Tasted blind, there’s always a distinct minerality, said Schwarz, ‘a smokiness of firestone’ and an expression of acidity that’s weightless yet stirring.

Despite rising temperatures, Sachsen produces wines of longevity and complexity without high alcohol or dense extraction – ‘it’s the freshness of granite’ – explains Matthias Schuh, the second-generation winemaker of Weingut Schuh, established by his father in 1990.

Schuh, who returned to Sachsen after extensive work abroad, most notably at Te Whare Ra, the biodynamic New Zealand producer, stands out as one of the region’s most visionary young winemakers.

His flagship wines, fine, filigreed expressions of Chardonnay and Pinot Blanc, are sourced in yields as low as 30 hl/ha from Klausenberg, a historic granite monopol restored and cultivated organically by his family.

Saale-Unstrut

Situated between the tourist-heavy cultural anchors of Dresden and Meissen, winemakers in Sachsen have little trouble selling their wines, even at prices above those from other German regions, notes Nitzsche.

Saale-Unstrut doesn’t benefit from as robust a ready-made market. Yet this challenge seems to have pushed its winemakers towards a greater degree of innovation and dynamism.

Weingut Hey is one of eight members of Breitengrad 51 (Latitude 51), a ‘kind of think tank,’ as Matthias Hey describes it, for like-minded winegrowers in Saale-Unstrut to connect, exchange ideas and innovate.

Wines from members like Hey, Böhme & Töchter, Weingut Born or Winzerhof Gussek are diverse but share a riveting sense of exuberance and clarity. Tasting their wines collectively, it’s hard not to recall the kinetic energy of associations like Message in a Bottle that transformed Rheinhessen just a generation or two ago.

The diverse make-up of soils in Saale-Unstrut – large proportions of shell limestone mixed with sandstone, loess and loam – is reminiscent of its closest neighbour to the west, Franken. While Müller-Thurgau is still the most planted variety here, it’s rapidly being replaced with varieties like Pinot Blanc and Riesling.

With consistently warmer climates, Chardonnay, Pinot Gris and Pinot Noir are what many of Saale-Unstrut’s quality producers claim will best represent this region’s future.

Silvaner too is uniquely suited to Saale-Unstrut, explains Konrad Buddrus, whose saline, earthen expressions of Silvaner have become a calling card for Konni & Evi, the tiny winery he operates with his wife, Eva-Maria Wehner.

Ripening consistently in cool vintages while maintaining acidity in hot ones, ‘Silvaner here is more filigreed than what you find in Franken, brighter and more acid-driven,’ he said.

Unfolding stories

Buddrus, a native to Saale-Unstrut, trained in Franken and abroad in New Zealand and Austria before returning to farm an abandoned single vineyard on steep slopes he purchased on eBay.

Since 2016, the couple has focused almost exclusively on similar plots of old, low-yielding Silvaner and Riesling planted before the GDR, some as early as the 1930s.

The challenging terrain makes for backbreaking work, but for Buddrus, it’s the purest expression of Saale-Unstrut. Their slim, minimalist wines contrast the increasingly polished style of their peers, but their uniqueness has established Konni & Evi as the region’s most recognisable ambassadors abroad.

Indeed, 80% of their wines are sold outside of Germany, largely in Japan, the UK, Denmark, Canada and the United States.

With the exception of wines from producers like Konni & Evi or Schloss Proschwitz, few wines from Saale-Unstrut or Sachsen have been exported outside their local market. Indeed, with such limited production and robust local demand, there’s been little financial impetus to do so.

Yet as Saale-Unstrut and Sachsen continue to shape their own, distinct identities, honing in on their unique terroir and rewriting their own viticultural heritage, it’s clear that the stories unfolding are too compelling to remain a secret much longer.

Sachsen and Saale-Unstrut: Nine wines to try

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Clare in South Australia is a small rural town, with a population of just over 3,000 people, yet it produces extraordinary wines. Peter Barry has long been scheming how to make the wider world take notice of a region that punches far above its weight. Especially with Riesling.

Peter is the son of Jim Barry, the first qualified winemaker in Clare, who obtained his oenology degree in 1947 and worked for big wine companies before issuing the first Jim Barry Wines in 1974.

Peter took over the company reins as MD from 1985 (Jim died in 2004) and vigorously took Jim Barry Wines to the world. Now, in the twilight of his working life, Peter is watching his sons Tom Barry (winemaker) and Sam Barry (commercial manager), and daughter Olivia Barry (brand ambassador) lead the family company forward.

Tasting notes and scores for Jim Barry wines are listed below

Peter focused his energy on promoting Clare as a respected region that deserves its place on a global stage. His efforts ensured that racy, citrus-driven Clare Riesling is now a globally recognised style.

However the Barry sons have greater ambition: to have their best wines regarded among the wine world’s elite.

Next generation

This successful generational transition is significant. The question of succession hangs like an ominous cloud over Australia’s wine industry, as small to mid-sized wineries developed by winemaker/operators represent about 90% of Australia’s 2,156 wine companies (source: Wine Australia).

The future for many of these wineries is fraught as the original proprietors approach retirement.

The Barrys have no such qualms. Tom, the third generation to steer the winemaking of Jim Barry Wines, understands classic wine styles and traditions that built success for his grandfather Jim.

In addition, Tom’s experience doing vintages overseas also sees him adopting new techniques to build heightened aromas and finesse in the winery’s outstanding Rieslings.

The recent release of premium red wines from the impressive 2021 vintage also showcases Tom’s aim of promoting elegance through restrained oak use.

It offers an opportune time for the Barrys’ talents and intentions to shine – with more refined character, finesse and significant improvement as a consequence.

‘Our family planted vineyards with a purpose 50 years ago, and now we want to maximise their potential,’ explains Sam. ‘We see it as our opportunity to build on what came before us to achieve the extraordinary.’

Notable vineyards

The Barry family has been at the forefront of promoting the best attributes of Clare’s vineyards since Jim Barry purchased the 133ha Lodge Hill property (historically known as Wolta Wolta) in 1977.

Success grew through expanding the family’s vineyards assets, particularly through purchasing the Florita Vineyard at Watervale in 1986. The source of fruit for the famed 1960s Leo Buring Rieslings made by John Vickery, it is now supplying the fruit for the Jim Barry Florita and Watervale Rieslings.

The Barrys have also established their own superior sites. The Armagh vineyard (below) was planted by Jim in 1964, with 900 Malbec and 2,500 Cabernet Sauvignon vines. This was followed by a further 3.2ha of Shiraz vines in 1968, with a view to producing exceptional red wine.

Yielding less than four tonnes per hectare, The Armagh’s intense Shiraz was initially matured in only new American oak, to produce plush, opulent and persistent wines, before shifting to a mix of French and American oak that encourages a more sleek, elegant framework for the bold, powerful fruit.

Delicious secondary characters of tarry, black earth within savoury blackberry and sour cherry, which sit almost at counterpoint to playful whiffs of brown spice, pepper and fresh-cut brambles, have elevated The Armagh to stand as a modern Australian Shiraz icon.

Riesling developments

The way forward for Jim Barry Wines is based on a willingness to embrace innovation. Several recent significant Riesling innovations are being championed, the boldest being a collaboration with Germany’s Dr Ernst Loosen to make the 2021 Wolta Wolta Riesling.

Matured on lees in a 3,000-litre oak cask for two years, before a further year-long maturation in bottle, this is a unique, rich and highly textural style of Australian Riesling.

Recognising this to be a significant benchmark, the Barry family has retained 40% of the 2021 vintage to be held back as museum stock.

‘This Riesling has power and complexity that will only grow in the bottle, so we want to make sure it can be reintroduced to a global market for important milestones, after 20 years or 30 years in the cellar,’ explains Sam. ‘We are confident it will make a very important statement.’

A new jewel in the crown is the Spring Farm Vineyard, purchased in 2010 from Brian Barry (Jim’s brother, who died in 2020). Tom and Sam immediately noticed that several blocks within the big vineyard produce fruit of exceptional quality that deserve to be isolated for separate vinification.

A suite of new Spring Farm single-block wines includes Block 114 Riesling, which has been bottle aged for 10 years before release.

‘We’ve done this to show the merits of our wines showing at their very best,’ says Sam. ‘And because we want the classic Clare Riesling style to be a part of the global wine conversation.’

Going Greek

Another bold step saw Jim Barry Wines plant the first Assyrtiko vines in Australia. Peter sourced 12 cuttings from 100-year-old vines at Argyros Winery on the Greek island of Santorini during 2007.

They then endured a two-year quarantine before the best two vines were released. From those two mother vines, 32 buds were grafted onto 30 Riesling vines at two Clare Valley vineyard sites in 2011. The following year, 658 Assyrtiko vines were planted on a rugged, bony ridge atop the Barry’s Lodge Hill vineyard in Clare.

Peter was besotted by Assyrtiko’s meld of slate-like minerality and fresh citrus zing, and believes this grape variety’s ability to resist diseases and tolerate drought conditions makes it a good fit for Australia’s marginal growing environments.

‘Planting Assyrtiko may have seemed like a big gamble, but it takes us a step toward growing grapes that have a sustainable future in this region,’ says Tom. ‘We must face up to climate change and water scarcity and adapt our vineyard management appropriately, he adds.

It all fits comfortably within the larger story of Jim Barry Wines moving forward.

‘There’s a huge future here – and it’s all based on our tradition,’ says Peter. ‘The great wines from Clare – our Rieslings, our Cabernets, our Shiraz – sit among the great wines of the world, and that’s the message we have to keep broadcasting.’

Jim Barry Wines: 10 bottles to try

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The 1970s marked the quality wine movement for Ontario and Canada at large. Riesling was there from the start, with the first vines planted in 1976.

As Canada’s largest viticultural area, Ontario currently has 18,000 acres (7,300ha) under vine. Riesling makes up approximately 1,600 acres of this, neck and neck with Chardonnay.

The Niagara Peninsula represents over 80% of all vines in the ground. It boasts Canada’s largest Riesling plantings by far and almost double that of the neighbouring Finger Lakes, also known for high-quality cool-climate Riesling in New York State.

Scroll down for 20 Ontario Rieslings worth seeking out

Classic conditions

Why is Niagara optimal for growing Riesling?

Before serious viticulture took root, the region was known as the Niagara Fruit Belt, which produces over 90% of the province’s tender fruit and is one of the richest fruit-producing areas in Canada.

Lake Ontario, part of the world’s largest freshwater system, moderates the continental cool climate, creating a Mediterranean-like mesoclimate during summer and fall harvest.

Winter-hardy Riesling appreciates how the lake delays bud-break and minimises spring frost risks, moderates hot summers and then radiates heat into autumn’s harvest for prolonged phenolic development in the berries.

The Niagara Peninsula has a complex topography and soil composition shaped around the Niagara Escarpment, a north-facing cliff formation peaking at 177m above sea level.

Old dolomitic limestone underpins the region’s geology, and 200,000 years of glacial events have created the diverse terroir that is evident in the delineated sub-appellations. Here, Riesling thrives, producing delicious fruit flavours in tandem with exhilarating acidity and moderate alcohol.

Pioneers and evolving styles

Not surprisingly, Ontario Riesling plantings were inspired by the region’s pioneering winemakers, many of Germanic and Austrian heritage. They brought winemaking techniques primarily focused on using natural sweetness to balance the electrifying acidity from this ‘New World’ region.

As a result, most Riesling was made in a range of off-dry to semi-sweet styles.

Interestingly, it was Cave Spring Vineyard, founded by partners with Italian roots, bet on the Riesling horse in the race to determine which varieties would flourish.

This pioneering producer has made its mark on the global Riesling scene for decades, mostly with off-dry to semi-sweet styles.

Other Riesling leaders like Charles Baker, Thirty Bench and Henry of Pelham, similarly – regularly win domestic and international acclaim with Rieslings that have a natural sweetness to balance the region’s bracing acidity.

Year after year, Niagara continues to be triumphant within this style range.

However, things have been evolving with Ontario Riesling for quite some time. Fifteen years ago, finding a Riesling made with less than 9g/L residual sugar was atypical.

I recall my mission of setting up winery visits for author John Haeger as he was researching for his book ‘Riesling Rediscovered – Bold, Bright and Dry’. It was challenging to find more than a handful of examples to fit within his dry criteria (9g/L or less).

Uncommonly dry

Coincidently, shortly thereafter, Ontario’s Riesling world changed. In 2010, winemaker co-owner Francois Morissette of Pearl Morissette gained a monumental following with his Black Ball Riesling. It was fully dry and a completely different expression of this variety for Niagara.

Gabe Demarco, winemaker and viticulturist at Cave Spring Vineyard believes that while Cave Spring’s original style became a benchmark for Canadian Riesling, they are not finished with their Riesling story.

Demarco is digging deep and questioning everything. He has transitioned all winemaking to wild ferments, and the winery is Canada’s first to isolate indigenous yeast in its home vineyard.

Soon to be launched is a Riesling aged in concrete, barrique-style vessels the winery had crafted from local limestone.

‘My mentor, Angelo Pavan, Canada’s iconic Riesling winemaker at Cave Spring Vineyard, has always encouraged me to push the limits of what’s possible,’ says Demarco. ‘Since I started working with him, he has always allowed me to experiment.

‘That, combined with the Riesling that Pearl Morissette started making in 2010, reconfirmed my suspicions were true – Niagara Riesling deserves bold winemaking with techniques uncommon in the region.’

Bright wines and a bright future

Others are following their own quests, proving that Riesling does not need a singular approach in Ontario.

Winemaker owner David Eiberg of Therianthropy is focusing on phenolic extraction in a natural wine style and fermenting his fully dry.

Dobbin Estate winery makes two styles of Riesling –each with different residual sugars, but in both cases, very textural. Multiple picks with some slightly botrytised berries, some skin contact, partial MLF, wild ferments, and a combination of stainless steel and neutral wood all contribute to their complexity.

Jake Skakun, partner and Wine Director at some of Toronto’s top wine bars and restaurants, including Grey Gardens, is happy to see this. He believes that pushing for a unified style of Riesling in Ontario could hinder the diversity of exceptional expressions.

He remarks: ‘I admire many delicate, off-dry Niagara Rieslings with bright acidity, balanced by just the right amount of sweetness. However, I am equally impressed by fully dry versions, where the region’s winemakers use techniques like lees ageing or malolactic fermentation to bring richness and texture while integrating the electrifying acidity.’

Last year, the Ontario Wine Appellation Authority, which certifies Ontario wines of origin with VQA, approved 156 still, varietal Riesling wines from 71 producers of the 194 wineries in Ontario.

Indeed, Ontario Riesling producers are producing multiple expressions of this variety. And this does not include the additional Riesling styles of Icewine, late-harvest, skin-fermented white (orange wine), and sparkling wine.

As Skakun says, Riesling has found a perfect home in Ontario and should be admired for its diversity. While the region’s dry examples are expanding the Riesling story, it’s worth remembering that those with some sweetness show exceptional elegance and balance.

With many vines now over 35 years-old, it’s inspiring to see a new era for Ontario Riesling – pushing boundaries, informed by wisdom.

Tasting notes for 20 top Ontario Rieslings:

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Caro Maurer MW, Svetoslav Manolev MS and Marcel Orford-Williams tasted 40 wines, with 4 Outstanding and 9 Highly Recommended.

German whites beyond Riesling: Panel tasting scores

40 wines tasted

Exceptional 0

Outstanding 4

Highly recommended 9

Recommended 18

Commended 4

Fair 5

Entry criteria: producers and UK agents were invited to submit their current-release, dry white wines from any region in Germany, single varietal or blend (in which Riesling could be included, but not as the dominant variety)

Riesling casts a large shadow in German vineyards. With some 24,400ha planted (DWI/Statistisches Bundesamt data for 2023), the German flagship variety occupies a quarter of the 103,687ha of vineyards (which are about two-thirds white varieties).

Though less recognised, other white grapes do exist – and can certainly produce top-class wines. This was demonstrated in the 40 wines reviewed at this panel tasting.

Scroll down to see the top results from the German whites beyond Riesling panel tasting

Germany is the world leader in plantings of Silvaner (4,330ha in 2023) and Pinot Blanc (Weissburgunder in German, 6,318ha). Although Silvaner originally comes from Austria and Pinot Blanc from France, both varieties seem to be more integrated into German vineyards than in their homelands.

Pinot Gris (or Grauburgunder, 8,372ha) and Chardonnay (2,912ha) also make their quality contribution to this selection of German whites, with the latter featuring in four of the 13 wines scoring 90 points or more.

Muscat, Sauvignon Blanc, the German variety Scheurebe and Gutedel (also known as Chasselas), as well as Viognier and Marsanne and the rare Faberrebe (a cross between Chardonnay and Müller-Thurgau), were also on show. The wine styles varied from fruity and fresh to serious and highly complex.

Rising quality

Chardonnay, in particular, demonstrates a class of its own, as illustrated by the two wines achieving 95 points or more. Svetoslav Manolev MS saw an opportunity for German Chardonnays, especially as the prices for the wines from Burgundy continue to rise steeply.

‘Germany today offers very good natural conditions for Chardonnay: cooler than Burgundy and warm enough for the variety to fully ripen,’ he said. Climate change certainly plays a role in this – and in general a positive role for Germany as a whole, so far.

Marcel Orford-Williams agreed, adding that over the last 15 years the quality of Pinot Blanc and Pinot Gris from Germany has also improved significantly – although the management of wood in the winemaking can be an issue.

‘German wine-growers first had to learn to understand the right relationship between wine and barrel,’ he said.

See all the wines from the German whites beyond Riesling panel tasting

Promising Pinot Blanc

Both experts are convinced that Pinot Blanc is the country’s most promising white grape beyond Riesling. As Orford-Williams put it: ‘Today, Chardonnay is available from almost every wine-growing region in the world. Pinot Blanc from Germany, on the other hand, is unique.’

In Alsace, Pinot Blanc doesn’t have the status as a noble grape, yet in Germany wine-growers are making top-notch dry wines with the variety – namely those originating from Grosses Gewächs sites (literally ‘great growths’, or equivalent to grand cru in France) as classified in regions such as Baden and Pfalz under the regulations of the VDP assocation (Verband Deutscher Prädikatsweingüter).

Silvaner, on the other hand, is all too easily overlooked when bottled on its own. The grape variety doesn’t leave much of an impression at first glance – green apple is typical of its flavours, but the same can also be said for several other varieties.

It seems it may be more palatable than Riesling for some wine lovers, however, according to Orford-Williams, as reflected in The Wine Society’s ‘successful’ Ruppertsberg Pfalz Trocken blend of the two (2023, £7.75 The Wine Society).

Manolev added that Silvaner is ‘particularly popular with customers who have more wine experience’, especially if it comes from from a Grosse Lage (VDP classified vineyard), he added – ‘then it reflects its origins’.

German whites beyond Riesling panel tasting scores

Wines were tasted blind

The judges

Caro Maurer MW is a German food and wine writer, and a WSET- and MW-level educator. A DWWA Regional Chair, she also contributes to Bonn’s daily newspaper GeneralAnzeiger and food and wine title Der Feinschmecker.

Svetoslav Manolev MS is London regional sales manager for merchant Berkmann Wine Cellars. The first Bulgarian to qualify as a Master Sommelier, in 2019, he is also a DWWA judge for categories including Austria and Germany.

Marcel Orford-Williams is a wine buyer for The Wine Society, covering southern and regional French wines and Germany. He is a longstanding DWWA judge, and was made a Chevalier de l’Ordre du Mérite Agricole for services to French wine.

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In late summer 2024, the winegrowers of the VDP presented their Grosses Gewächs whites from 2023 and reds from 2022 at this year’s tasting in Wiesbaden.

See Caro Mauer MW’s top 30 recommendations below

The annual event

It’s an annual marathon, albeit a seated one, where the only movement comes from lifting your glass.

That’s the essence of the presentation tasting for the new vintages of the Grosses Gewächse (GG) wines.

Only produced by members of the VDP (Verband Deutscher Prädikatsweingüter, the Association of German Prädikat Wine Estates), the release of these ‘grand cru’ level wines is highly anticipated.

This year, the red wines from the 2022 vintage were in the spotlight, while the white wines were predominantly from the 2023 vintage.

Around 200 wine experts from all over the world travelled to Wiesbaden to taste as many GGs as possible over three days.

A total of 462 wines were served in flights of up to six wines, organised by grape variety and origin.

The experts sit in silence from morning to night in the bright colonnades of the Wiesbaden Kurhaus, raising glass after glass, and filling page after page of their notebooks with the ratings.

And at the end of each day, it almost feels like you’ve actually completed a marathon. Each glass seems heavier than the last, as you struggle from flight to flight at an ever slower pace, except that it’s not your muscles that ache but your teeth from all that tartaric acid.

The results made it all worth it though. After 2018, the 2022 vintage is likely the best-ever for German Pinot Noir.

Vintage 2023, on the other hand, was not an easy one for the whites. The range of quality is much wider here.

Only those who accurately committed to early harvest were able to bottle what might be described as more classic wines.

A glimpse into the future

In simple terms, GGs refer to the best dry wines from the finest sites. They are rare, comprising only 0.4% of the total wine production of the country.

Moreover, they are not cheap, with an average price of around €49 a bottle. White wines can be released to the market from 1 September of the year following harvest, while red wines are available on 1 September after two years.

It is not easy to taste these young wines now, let alone to assess them. After all, the Grosse Gewächse are called so because they usually harbour great potential for development.

They often need years before they reveal all their facets and show their best side. The chief reason for tasting them so young is how hard they would be to find later.

Given this, the tasting in Wiesbaden can only be a snapshot – a glimpse into the future.

The verdict: 2022 reds

The 2022 vintage was notably warm and dry, which benefited the red wines, particularly Spätburgunder (Pinot Noir) and Lemberger.

‘It was the best vintage for red wines that we ever experienced in Germany,’ recalled Klaus Peter Keller.

‘Even finer than 2018, because it was not quite as hot and the aromatic ripeness progressed more slowly and the sugar value did not increase excessively this time.’

Keller’s 2022 Pinot Noir from the Morstein vineyard is one of the best. Its resemblance to Burgundy is marked; it reminds me of a Gevrey-Chambertin – the wine is simply world-class.

The wines from the Centgrafenberg and Hundsrück vineyards of the Rudolf Fürst winery are also among the finest Pinot Noirs: elegant and radiantly beautiful, with tannins so silky that they seem to be wearing a dinner jacket.

Julian Huber from the Bernhard Huber winery in Baden is also no slouch with his Schlossberg and Wildenstein from the Bienenberg.

However, his wines appear more modern and determined, flirting with a slight reduction that cloaks the fruit of cherries and raspberries in graphite and cold smoke.

For the first time in 2022, a Pinot Noir from the Mosel also ranks among the top wines: Maximin Grünhaus’ Abtsberg with its polished, international style.

The verdict: 2023 whites

In contrast, 2023 proved to be more challenging for white wines. First, there was drought in spring, followed by persistent rain and warm temperatures that encouraged fungal diseases.

The weather stabilised in September, leading to a super-fast harvest, as everything was suddenly ripe at the same time.

Manual labour was necessary to sort and harvest healthy grapes. Throughout the summer of 2023, the employees of Tim Fröhlich at Schäfer-Fröhlich were kept on their toes constantly.

With the rain promoting foliage growth, the leaves in the fruit zone had to be removed repeatedly.

And the hard work put in by winemakers such as Tim Fröhlich and Hansjörg Rebholz certainly paid off in their wines.

The 2023 Felseneck and Kastanienbusch Rieslings from each respectively are exceptional wines, already displaying the promise of future greatness.

The best of the best also included the 2023 Treppchen (still a barrel sample) from Weingut Dr. Loosen on the Mosel: intense, still quite young, but already polished.

Other top producers who shone include: Weil and Künstler in the Rheingau, Kühling-Gillot and Wittmann in Rheinhessen, and Battenfeld Spanier, Philipp Kuhn, and Christmann in the Pfalz.

A newcomer among my favourites is the Kalmit GG from Weingut Kranz, which is an absolute bargain among the top wines.

Although the 2023 white wines need choosing with care, anyone who buys them now with an eye to drinking them in 10 years’ time can look forward to a great return on investment.

Best of the new Grosses Gewächs releases

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The idea of Rieslingfreak seems absurd – an Australian winery that produces only Riesling wines, and up to 19 styles each vintage that focus on various different sites, blends and winemaking techniques.

However, the execution of this grand idea over the past 15 years by husband-and-wife winemaking team John and Belinda Hughes shows a spark of focused genius that has made Rieslingfreak a beacon for quality, innovation and excellence in Australian Riesling.

Scroll down to see notes and scores for eight fabulous Rieslings from Rieslingfreak

A family affair

When Rieslingfreak began in 2009, it had a very simple premise – for John to create a Riesling that best defined his parents’ vineyard at White Hut (John prefers the location’s alternative spelling, White Hutt), just north of Clare in South Australia.

They grow Riesling grapes that were traditionally sold to other producers and then blended into generic wines. John wanted to honour his parents with a wine that spoke specifically of their site and carry a label that clearly acknowledged its provenance.

Today, John takes most of the fruit from the five Riesling blocks, and his parents only tend to sell the fruit that is judged to be below Rieslingfreak standard, which depends on each vintage.

‘It was a pretty straightforward idea, but one Riesling was never going to be enough,’ says John, who was given the nickname ‘Riesling Freak’ during his university years, as a nod to his obsession.

‘I had so many ideas in my head, and so many styles of Riesling that I adore. I wanted to make them all, and I couldn’t see any good reason why not.’

So Rieslingfreak has grown, and grown, to now produce more than 144,000 bottles – not only to satisfy John and Belinda’s fascination with Riesling, but also to meet growing consumer demand that escalated after the 2017 Rieslingfreak No. 3 (from Huighes’ White Hut vineyard) won five trophies at the 2017 Sydney Royal Wine Show, including Best Wine of Show.

‘Riesling is a grape that allows – and deserves – many different types of expression,’ says John. ‘So that’s what we’ve done over many vintages, and every style deserves its place.’

Laser focus

John’s journey to realise this moment has been complicated. Born with mild cerebral palsy, which affects his coordination, mobility and speech, John has patiently and diligently set his mind to pursue winemaking with the astute precision that Riesling demands.

After completing a degree in wine marketing at the University of Adelaide, he worked as a technical analyst at the Australian Wine Research Institute for a decade, also travelling through regions in France and Italy to expand his knowledge before returning to the Barossa to work as production winemaker with the renowned Chris Ringland at North Barossa Vintners.

Only then, with considerable knowledge and experience to his credit, did he take the plunge to make his first wine under the Rieslingfreak label.

‘Growing up on an old Riesling vineyard at Penwortham in the Clare Valley and having my old man’s cellar full of aged Rieslings from throughout the world started my appreciation of the Riesling grape at a young age,’ recalls John.

‘Once my parents moved to White Hut in 1998, a big vineyard with five different Riesling sites, each with a different soil profile, I realised this was the resource I could use to start exploring all those different Riesling styles.’

In pursuit of a broad palette

He has a very capable ally in Belinda, whose relationship with John flourished at the annual International Riesling Challenge in Canberra, due to their shared infatuation with Riesling.

In 2021, after almost 15 years of making white wines for Grant Burge in the Barossa, Belinda joined John at Rieslingfreak, and now their great challenge is to see who gets to work with their favourite vineyard sites from across the Clare Valley and Eden Valley, vineyards which are both family and privately owned, each offering particular and distinctive characteristics.

This has seen them explore a variety of styles, far beyond the expected bone-dry Australian expression of Riesling. They make sparkling Riesling, a fortified, several sub-regional expressions with bottle age, and two regional blends designed specifically as export labels to appease growing US and UK interest – No. 33, featuring a meld of North Clare and Polish Hill River fruit, and No. 44, featuring three Eden Valley sites.

John’s personal favourites are the No. 5 Off Dry Riesling and the German-inspired No. 8 Schatzkammer (modelled on a Kabinett style), which show off his masterful judgement to balance sugar and acid in rich, textural styles that pursue a distinctive Rieslingfreak personality rather than simply mimic German benchmarks.

These two were presented during a special tasting which celebrated the July 2024 opening of a new cellar door just outside Tanunda in the Barossa Valley.

An occasion fit for the Queen of grapes

The bespoke tasting room has been designed as a temple devoted to Riesling, with its lofty cathedral ceiling and towering glass windows allowing maximum daylight to best examine the fragile colours of Riesling in the glass.

Imbedded green glass shards from broken Riesling bottles add a dazzling emerald sparkle to the polished concrete floor. Crucially, this large space with four spacious long table settings can accommodate growing demand for Rieslingfreak’s tutored tasting sessions.

John used the occasion to present a decade of the best Rielsingfreak wines, to study their endurance and staying power after time in the cellar. The array of wines tasted was extraordinary, led by a 10-year vertical of No. 2 Polish Hill River Riesling.

He also shone a light on his flagship wine, Rieslingfreak No. 1 (also known as Grounds of Grandeur Riesling), featuring hand-picked grapes from the best four rows of his parents’ White Hut vineyard, chilled for two days, then whole-bunch pressed, fermented with wild yeast and stored for 20 months in a bespoke 1,500-litre oak cask before bottling.

It now stands as an Australian benchmark with its AU$110 (£56) price tag – and the current-release (2020 vintage) shows its pedigree proudly, amplifying richness, complex textural quality, a meld of savoury and sharp citrus notes, and extraordinary length.

John is as complex as the wines he makes. An enthusiastic and fastidious cook, he entered Australia MasterChef in 2011, only to withhold a dish from the judges because it failed to meet his own exacting standards. He’s generous to a fault, yet unyielding in his assessment of excellence.

And while he’s uncomfortable if any fuss is made of his disability, he is a champion of disability support, having founded the Kicking Goals Scholarship programme that provides mentorship and educational funding for young people living with a disability.

‘I’m quite happy being the Rieslingfreak,’ he offers with a gentle smile. ‘And I’m delighted to be presenting a very different story about the diversity of fine Australian Riesling.’

David Sly’s pick of Rieslingfreak:

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Across the 14,164 hectares under vine in the 11 American Viticultural Areas that make up the state of New York, there was one definitive trend in 2023: unpredictability.

Shannon Brock of Silver Thread Winery in the Finger Lakes called the growing season ‘a wild ride with a soft landing.’ She ‘biointensively’ farms a 4.05ha property nestled into the eastern hills of Seneca Lake with her husband (and winemaker), Paul.

She notes with irony that the wines from 2023 seeming ‘typical’ given the growing season was anything but.

‘I wish all wine drinkers thought more about the fact that artisanal wine is an agricultural product and a reflection of nature,’ says Brock. The gap between customer understanding and producer reality broadens as the idea of ‘typical’ continues to dissipate.

Scroll down for the 25 top-scoring New York wines of the 2023 vintage

Climate change and a new ‘normal’

2019 might be considered the closest vintage to typical in hindsight, producing fresh wines with strong acidity. 2020 has been described as a dream: its warm days, cool nights and drought-like conditions offer pristine fruit and some of the state’s most powerfully beautiful wines.

Record-breaking rains and humidity brought on 2021’s challenging farming conditions. Many hoped 2022 would bring some relief with more favourable weather and generally clean fruit. However, winter damage led to a smaller crop than normal and a larger impact on producer livelihoods.

By 2023, the stakes were high. Financial challenges from the previous vintages paired with an early bud-break (nearly two weeks in some locations) and beautifully warm spring days brought high expectations.

‘The weather was an outlier, but the fruit quality was not,’ notes Brock. The season offered tumultuous weather conditions, with one extreme weather event after another tumbling through state lines.

The result is white wines that are bright and refreshing, with Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Gris producing standout glasses. Fruit-forward reds do best with a chill, and Bordeaux-style blends show promise for ageing. Across the board, higher acidity allows for easy pairing with foods.

Though unpredictability may be a hallmark of farming, it is also where the wine industry shines.

New York 2023: MJD’s top scoring wines of the vintage:

Living Roots Wine & Co., Shale Creek Chardonnay 2023, 93 points

Apollo’s Praise, Riesling 2023, 93 points

Nathan K, Cabernet Franc Primeur 2023, 93 points

Palmer Vineyards, Lake Harvest Gewürztrminer 2023, 92 points

Boundary Breaks Vineyard, Dry Rosé 2023, 92 points

Weis Vineyards, Zweigelt Dry Rosé 2023, 91 points

Challenge accepted

Across the lake on Seneca’s southwest side, Kelby James Russell, with his partner and co-conspirator Julia Hoyle, closed on their home vineyard, Lahoma, on 13 April 2023. Just over a month later, the overnight frost on 18 May ripped across the entire state, leaving behind crisp leaves and frozen vines.

Cold weather stayed put for up to six hours in some locations, resulting in 100% crop loss. For others, it caused minimal damage and caused a sigh of relief. Across the board, May’s weather was truly damaging to small farming businesses in rural New York.

‘Hell Kelb, I’m sorry,’ Russell remembers Harlan Fulkerson saying to him at 6am that morning after touring the damage. Russell had purchased the property from Fulkerson’s son, Ken, and both remain involved in farming the land. All three were unable to sleep that evening.

‘I had always been hyper-aware of the weather and potential threats,’ says Russell, who sourced fruit from Lahoma Vineyards for years as a winemaker prior to ownership. In the end, Apollo’s Praise suffered a 50% crop loss.

In short order, the unprecedented weather events continued. June heat led to wildfires in Quebec. Smoke plumes travelled more than 2,000 miles (3,220km), enveloping New York in an eerie cloud cover.

Click here for notes and scores of all the 2023 vintage New York wines tasted

Additionally, precipitation brought significant concern across the state, and in Lake Erie especially. ‘The rain mid-season did put significant disease pressure on a lot of blocks, which required more selection and grading in order to maintain quality,’ explained Mario Mazza of Mazza Chautauqua Cellars. The Mazza family has been farming grapes in the region since 1973.

Today, they farm over 240ha of grapes and grains in New York and Pennsylvania.

Though Lake Erie avoided the 2023 frost, the region ushered in the 2024 season with a freeze on April 25th. Crop sizes are likely to be small, but the full impact remains to be seen.

You get what you give

Meticulous farming was required statewide for high-quality fruit in 2023. Rains also brought concern to Hudson Valley and Long Island. In the Finger Lakes, disease pressure remained low despite nearly three times the average rainfall.

In response to the rain and smog, growers pulled leaves to increase circulation and sun exposure for the grapes. Seemingly overnight, sunburn caused by high UV rays emerged as a new concern, something rarely seen in New York.

Growing degree days played catch up in July and August, but sugar levels remained fairly moderate. Cool nights maintained acidity while grapes hung on vines as long as possible. Some locations were still harvesting fruit in November.

‘The extremes are what’s changing,’ explains Hudson Valley-based Matthew Spaccarelli of the volatile growing seasons in New York state. ‘It’s all normal in between. But when it rains, it really, really rains, and when it’s cold, it’s really, really cold.’

Spaccarelli runs Benmarl Winery and Fjord Vineyards and knows these extremes well. The cold cost him blocks of Albariño and Gamay.

New York 2023: Key producers of 2023

Apollo’s Praise

Fjord Vineyards

Living Roots Wine & Co.

Silver Thread Winery

Adapting to survive and thrive

Despite the loss, Spaccarelli says, ‘the growing season was actually pretty good. It’s definitely a year where we can’t complain about quality.’

He and his wife, Casey Erdmann, are gearing up for the next iteration of Fjord Vineyards on a new property with plans to plant more Albariño. He compares the variety to Sauvignon Blanc or Chardonnay in terms of hardiness.

‘Plant for the worst, hope for the best,’ he jokes.

At Apollo’s Praise, Russell and Hoyle will do the same, replacing a Riesling block in a cooler location with the cold-hardy German variety Scheurebe. Theirs is the first commercial planting of the grape in New York state.

The planting is a necessity. Having stretched their remaining crop across a small group of regional producers in need, they ran out of wine to finish their own projects. A kind neighbour in Boundary Breaks Vineyard provided the duo with Riesling to round out their Kabinett offering.

In reminiscing about this time, Russell remembers a sense of community at the forefront.

‘It is unbelievable that out of such a cold and dark moment, we have had so much excitement and love for our wines,’ he says, reflecting on the warm response to his initial launch, which is already sold out.

The obstacle is the way

‘I learn more in a challenging vintage,’ Plum Plummer confesses. He’s served as winemaker for Montezuma Winery since 2010 and sees tough growing seasons as an opportunity.

‘In years like 2023, where we’ve got all that bright acid, we can push the [ripeness] envelope without any fear of weighing things down.’

Vintages are spent chasing nuance, depth and complexity within the perfectly balanced wine. He sees Finger Lakes’ acidity as a gift and works to find equilibrium through fruit and texture.

Plummer powers through any risk aversion in the name of experimentation and education. ‘You get to take wild chances and learn things that you can take from vintage to vintage and integrate those lessons across the board.’

While it’s early to predict the 2024 vintage, Plummer, like his colleagues statewide, is cautiously optimistic. ‘I’m gonna knock on some wood right here.’

New York State 2023: value picks

Dr. Konstantin Frank Winery, Grüner Veltliner 2023, 92 points

Keuka Spring Vineyards, Brusco 2023, 90 points

Osmote, Pocket Wine 2023, 89 points

New York State 2023: a selection of the top wines

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If you like your food hot and spicy, does that mean you have to miss out on a wine to enjoy with it? Not necessarily… Although spice is one of the trickier food-matching challenges, there are plenty of wine styles that can work well with the heat and complex flavours of spicy dishes.

There is a key choice to make before you start. Do you want to amplify the heat or tame it?

Chilli thrill-seekers could meet the heat head-on with what experienced sommelier Matthieu Longuère MS, wine development manager at Le Cordon Bleu London, describes as a ‘spice booster’ wine.

If you’re less excited by the Scoville heat scale, you’ll want a wine that mellows out the dish – without compromising the flavours of course. Off-dry white wines are a good option here, because their slight sweetness can help to reduce the heat.

Spice boosters

Bold and fruity reds – such as Syrah/Shiraz or Grenache/Garnacha, which have spicy notes on the palate – are a good option if you want to ramp up the spice in a dish. Look for examples that have plenty of fruit rather than high tannins, as too much tannin is the worst enemy of spice.

Winemaking regions in the warmer southern hemisphere are a good place to find fruitier styles of spicy red wines. Think South America’s signature red grapes, Malbec and Carmenère or Pinotage from South Africa. Brambly, spicy Zinfandel from the US is another red that can work well with spicy dishes such as chilli con carne.

Andrés Rangel, former sommelier at top Indian restaurant Gymkhana in London, suggests that it can be fun to think about matching spicy wines to specific spicy aromas and flavours in a dish. ‘Some of the herbs and spices used [in Indian cooking], such as cardamom, ginger, pepper, clove and coriander, are present in the flavour and aromatic profile of wine,’ he explains.

Cool customers

If you want to contain the heat of a spicy dish rather than amplify it, Rangel recommends off-dry aromatic white wines as ‘safe’ options. This means grape varieties such as Gewürztraminer, Viognier, Muscat, Pinot Gris and Riesling. While Alsace is a good place to start hunting, these varieties can be found all over the wine world. Argentina’s signtaure aromatic white grapes Torrontés, with its peachy fruit is another variety to look out for.

‘For me, off-dry wines only work if there is also an element of sweetness in the spicy food,’ says Anne Krebiehl MW, widely published wine writer and author of The Wines of Germany. ‘For example, there’s usually palm sugar in Thai dishes along with lemongrass and mild chilli heat. Here, an off-dry, light-bodied Riesling – but not sweet – would be perfect, just to echo that nuance of sweetness.’

She adds: ‘Look out for the term “feinherb” (off-dry) on the label and aim for anywhere between 11-13% abv.’

Rosé and orange wines

Food and wine matching expert and Decanter contributing editor, Fiona Beckett, thinks fuller-bodied rosés stand up well to spice. ‘Rosés from the New World tend to be riper and sweeter than their European counterparts, and this is not necessarily an off-putting quality when they are paired with spicy food,’ she explains.

Italy’s Cerasuolo d’Abruzzo is another deeper rosé style that can pair brilliantly with some spicy dishes. Or seek out dark pink Spanish rosados made from Garnacha, a grape that’s naturally low in tannins. These punchy rosés will work particularly well with Caribbean jerk seasoning.

Both rosé and food-friendly orange wines are a good choice for Eastern Mediterranean and North African dishes, featuring spices such as sumac, harissa and ras el hanout. A lamb tagine or spicy aubergine would also pair well with lighter reds such as Beaujolais, which can be served chilled.

Sparkling success

Finally, don’t forget fizz. For Rangel sparkling wines with a creamy mousse are a reliable choice with spicy food – especially if you’re looking to reduce the heat. He advises thinking about the texture of the dish. Is it a creamy curry or a dry-spiced deep-fried snack?

‘The most effective way to match wine and spicy food is balancing weight by weight, and contrasting flavours,’ says Rangel. ‘For example, in Indian food, we find rich and fatty dishes, made with cream or yoghurt. So we need wines with enough body to support those dishes and at the same time ripe fruit flavours to create a pleasant contrast with the spices.’

Krebiehl adds that sparkling wines can work particularly well with seafood dishes that carry just hint of heat. ‘I love to drink fizz and find that a rather creamy and really mature Champagne goes well with chilli-accented dishes; like soft-shell crab or squid fried in a cayenne-spiced batter,’ she says.

It’s not just about whites either; sparkling reds can also work with certain spicy dishes. ‘I am a big fan of Chinese five spice, with its warm redolence of clove and cinnamon. Rounder, gutsier Pinot Noirs that border on plummy fruitiness work well here, but so does sparkling Shiraz,’ adds Krebiehl

Top five wine styles for spicy food 

• Off-dry Riesling 
• Off-dry Pinot Gris
• Full-bodied rosés
• Syrah/Shiraz 
• Grenache

Wines to pair with spicy food: 12 to try

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The Wachau region along the Danube valley is surely one of Europe’s unforgettable stretches of vineyard, alongside the Mosel in Germany and Douro in Portugal.

Most of the vineyards are very steep, and terraced within stone walls so as to benefit from maximum exposure to sunlight.

The vines are largely planted on the north side of the river and thus face south, but in a few villages across the river a handful of vineyards thrive where the river sinuously turns into the sunlight.

Scroll down to see notes and scores for wines from some of the Wachau’s leading producers

The soils in the Wachau are primary volcanic rock such as gneiss, which distinguishes them from the loess-dominated vineyards to the east along the Danube valley.

This accounts for the steely minerality of the wines, in contrast to the more opulent styles found in its neighbours to the east in the Kremstal and Kamptal.

However, on the lower sites one can also find gravel, sand, loess, and marine deposits, all better suited to Grüner Veltliner than Riesling.

Mineral grandeur

If today the Wachau is most renowned for those two varieties, it was not always thus. Fifty years ago one could encounter other varieties such as Weissburgunder (Pinot Blanc) and Neuburger, although these have mostly vanished.

They could produce excellent wines, but they rarely rivalled the intensity and grandeur of the two dominant grapes.

Such is the mineral dimension of the wines that I often find it hard to identify which of the two varieties I am tasting, especially when the source is a high elevation vineyard.

The Wachau has also benefited from its human dimension. There were a handful of producers of the highest quality – the wines from FX Pichler, Franz Hirtzberger, Prager, and Knoll, among others, are legends both within and beyond Austria.

But there was also a cooperative, the Freier Weingärtner, blessed with many outstanding sites, that also made great wines. Today it has been renamed as Domäne Wachau.

Individual styles

The wines have never been uniform in style. The influence of the river below, as well as the fact that the harvest was generally very late in the autumn, often into November, mean that botrytis could attack the grapes in damper vintages.

Some producers just accepted this as the vintage character, resulting in wines with a broader, more succulent profile (and often a few grams of residual sugar).

Other growers, such as Rudi Pichler, did everything possible to keep the grapes free of infection so as to preserve a purer, racier style.

There is no right or wrong here; just different approaches. Producers that tolerate some botrytis, and the 4-8 ensuing grams of residual sugar, generally ensure that any detectable sweetness is balanced by high acidity.

Overall, however, the wines seem more pristine and elegant than they were, say, 15 years ago. In part this is a vintage character, as in 2021 and 2022, but also a growing reluctance to pick later than necessary.

‘Most growers,’ says Emmerich Knoll Jr., ‘accept that if the fruit is ripe and healthy, then there is little to be gained by delaying the harvest.’

Grapes and lizards

In so many wine regions the growers love nothing better than to carp and quarrel, but not here, where in 1983 the great estates teamed up to create the Vinea Wachau association.

This established various ground rules focusing on maintaining quality (forbidding chaptalisation or mechanical concentration, and banning wood chips or tannin powder), but also created a kind of hierarchy based on ripeness levels at harvest.

The most basic wines were the simple, fresh Steinfeders; mid-tier wines with a bit more structure and around 12% alcohol were called Federspiel.

Meanwhile, the grandest and most long-lived wines, with alcohols ranging from 12.5% to 14.5%, were called Smaragd, referring to a local lizard encountered on the sun-baked terraces high above the river.

Today, however, Steinfeder is heading for extinction, as global warming makes that crisp uncomplicated style difficult to achieve.

Quality over ripeness

There is also a band of producers (the most renowned being Lucas Pichler of FX Pichler) that have left Vinea Wachau and thus opted out of the hierarchy.

They argue that it no longer makes sense to strive for maximum ripeness as a criterion of quality, especially if it comes at the expense of finesse.

Pichler also wants to be able to use some small oak barrels in addition to the large casks traditional to the region.

But few are following in his footsteps. Many regret the defections, but accept that in a small region with considerable competition between producers, it’s inevitable that some estates will seek to establish their own identity.

At the same time the Wachau growers agreed from 2020 to integrate the countrywide DAC system, which identifies and promotes the most typical grape variety and style of each region, such as Grüner Veltliner for the Weinviertel.

Since the Wachau already has its own classification, it didn’t make sense to many to abandon it in favour of the catch-all DAC.

Single-vineyard wines must be from the two main varieties; other varieties must be labelled as village wines. And there is no Reserve category in the Wachau.

Nothing here is controversial, and there has been no outcry from consumers. Of greater significance, according to Knoll, is the growers’ almost universal acceptance since 2023 of the criteria for sustainable farming and production promoted by ‘Sustainable Austria’.

Winning combinations

The Wachau remains the source of some of Europe’s greatest white wines.

Wines from the top sites – Kellerberg, Loibenberg, Schütt, and Steinertal to the warmer west; Singerriedel from the cooler east; and Achleiten, Klaus, Kollmütz, and Hochrain midway along the valley – have stood the test of time.

Although global warming and the need for irrigation may affect the character of some wines, the Wachau’s overall reputation is unlikely to be eclipsed.

This is due to a winning combination of factors: great vineyards, a range of elevations, a panoply of primary-rock soils, a general consensus on what constitutes an ideal expression of vineyard and wine variety, and a growing band of first-rate producers.

Leading producers in the Wachau

FX Pichler

This is probably the Wachau’s most celebrated estate. Based in Oberloiben, Franz Pichler practised the quality-oriented principles of Vinea Wachau years before the group was founded.

Since his retirement his son Lucas continues to maintain the highest standards. These are powerful wines, with great structure and longevity.

In the past some bottlings, often called ‘M’ for Monumental, were too forceful and alcoholic for some tastes, though they often met with great critical acclaim.

Nikolaihof

This estate, based in Mautern on the outskirts of Krems, has been unashamedly biodynamic for over 50 years.

The Saahs family have their own style, with some wines aged for around 10 years in casks before bottling.

They also tend to release their wines later than their neighbours, which is why they are not included in the list of recommended wines, which are all from the 2022 vintage.

The Nikolaihof wines are always modest in alcohol but never lack body, and can have remarkable longevity.

Domäne Wachau

This substantial cooperative, sourcing grapes from over 400 hectares, is a model of its kind.

The technical director, Heinz Frischengruber, works closely with the growers to maintain high viticultural standards, and a third of the vineyards are now farmed organically.

The cooperative produces a wide range of classic Wachau wines, but diverts its clientele with experimental bottlings aged in amphorae and even in marble tanks.

Prices are modest for the quality, so it’s worth opting for wines from top sites such as Achleiten.

Frischengruber

Heinz Frischengruber’s day job is at the Domäne Wachau, but his son Georg now runs the family property in Rossatz on the right bank of the Danube, across from the more celebrated wine village of Dürnstein.

The terraced vineyards are mostly on primary rock, with some loess lower down. They demonstrate that the right locations here can deliver wines of typicity and precision.

Grabenwerkstatt

Wachau native Franz Hofbauer and German Michael Linke met when working at Pyramid Valley in New Zealand.

In 2014 they created Grabenwerkstatt, sourcing grapes from a few hectares of mostly old vineyards in the decidedly cool Spitzer Graben.

They work by hand and don’t even own a tractor. They follow biodynamic principles and practise minimal intervention, creating small quantities of wine with great purity of fruit.

Top picks from the Wachau

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Today, the Mosel is a region steeped in deference to its history. New generations of winemakers rarely stray from family recipes, which have helped establish some of the top Riesling houses with hundreds of years of winemaking pedigree.

Even in this special part of the wine-growing world, Ernst Loosen‘s new Zach. Bergweiler-Prüm wines show an impressive regard for an era when Riesling produced here was some of the most sought-after and highly-priced wine in the world.

Bergweiler-Prüm was Ernst Loosen’s great-grandfather on his mother’s side. He was a significant producer in the Middle Mosel, having established a renowned winery in the village of Wehlen. It was Zacharias who married into Mosel royalty in the Prüm family.

Loosen’s project utilises his great-grandfather’s original cellar to produce the wines, with a significant effort to remain true to the era in which Bergweiler-Prüm was growing and making Riesling.

Each wine comes from a different parcel of the Grosse Lage site, Wehlener Sonnenuhr. The vines are 130 years old and farmed as they would have been in those days. Loosen has also used vine training practices that were used during his great-grandfather’s era.

Only natural and historically appropriate items are used to transport the fruit to the winery, tie back vine shoots or cultivate the soils. ‘I wanted to gain experience with very low-intervention viticulture and winemaking, the way my great-grandfather did it,’ said Loosen.

The three wines are a dry Riesling Grosses Gewächs (GG), an off-dry Kabinett, and a partially botrytised Auslese. Each is made in a style of Bergweiler-Prüm’s era and can depart from the well-known styles that have come to fashion since the German Wine Law of 1971. The Auslese is made in a less sweet style than many contemporary counterparts.

In the cellar, faithfulness to the past is maintained. The wines are all pressed in a restored basket press from 1910, and they ferment spontaneously in neutral, 1,000-litre German oak Fuder casks. There is no racking nor bâtonnage while they mature on the full lees for 24 months. Extended barrel maturation was the normal practice in Bergweiler-Prüm’s era. It gave the wines time to clarify and stabilise without the use of modern technology.

After bottling, the wines are held for an additional four years prior to release.

One Fuder (or about 1,300 bottles) of each 2018 wine was made. They will be sold in mixed three-packs and exclusively through négociants on La Place.

‘These wines are a journey into our past when German Rieslings had been the world’s most prized wines,’ said Loosen. ‘They are precious to me, and I want to share them with serious wine collectors around the globe. I’m happy to be able to offer them through the La Place de Bordeaux network.’

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It’s ironic that when I go to interview actor and wine producer Sam Neill at his Central Otago farm, HQ for his Two Paddocks wines, he isn’t there.

Because as well as being famous for his roles in, among others, The Piano and the Jurassic Park franchise, and TV’s Peaky Blinders, Neill has a reputation as the most hands-on of celebrity winemakers; when he’s not travelling for work, he lives at the farm, where he’s known affectionately as ‘The Proprietor’ or simply ‘The Prop’.

He built a house there, in among the vines, and it’s very much his base, to the extent that when he received a devastating blood cancer diagnosis two years ago, he told the specialist (in Australia) ‘that I wouldn’t come back for a few days, that I hadn’t been to my farm for months and I needed to sleep in my own bed… plant something, be a farmer and a wine producer, even if it was only for a few days. I really needed to do that.’

Scroll down to see notes and scores for eight wines from Sam Neill’s Two Paddocks estate

Finding time

He wrote this in his engaging memoir Did I Ever Tell You This? (paperback, £10.99 Penguin, March 2024), penned during treatment that has proved largely successful – he’s now in full metabolic remission, though still taking preventative drugs.

The book devotes two full chapters to his life in wine and the pages might as well have red wine sploshes all over them, so clear is Neill’s love for the subject, and for Pinot Noir in particular.

I didn’t meet Neill that day; he had been called abroad hurriedly due to a changed film schedule. But I spent an afternoon with his close teammates, winemaker Dean Shaw (who has worked with Two Paddocks since 1999) and viticulturist Mike Wing (joined in 2004).

And a full tasting of Two Paddocks’ releases later, I got to scratch the bristly head of Neill’s beloved kunekune, pig Angelica, which is actually a boar, so that was some compensation.

We schedule a Zoom interview, me back in the UK with a bottle of Two Paddocks Riesling open on my desk as it’s 8pm, and Neill apologising for his jet lag at 9am NZ time back on the farm.

He has just flown in from the US, where he has been publicising his new TV drama Apples Never Fall, co-starring Annette Bening. He perks up the moment we start to talk about wine and we move quickly to his favourite subject, ‘Lord Pinot’.

Falling in love

In another life, Neill might have joined the drinks trade, as he had family connections. Wines and spirits were a core part of New Zealand company Neill & Co, where his father (post-army career) and grandfather both worked.

But Neill showed little interest in drinks until he visited the great actor James Mason at his home on the shores of lake Geneva in 1980, where he was introduced to red Burgundy during a meal at Charlie Chaplin’s favourite restaurant.

Neill was immediately smitten and is still cross that he can’t remember precisely where that first wine originated. He ‘continued his love affair with Burgundy for the next 12 years or so’, discovering Pinot from Oregon along the way.

It was the late Rolfe Mills of Rippon Vineyard at lake Wanaka in Central Otago who first put in Neill’s head the idea of growing Pinot there; Neill describes tasting Rippon’s 1991 Pinot as a ‘lightbulb moment’.

His first vineyard was planted in 1993 in the middle of the Gibbston valley. Neill’s film director mate Roger Donaldson bought the next plot along, hence Two Paddocks. ‘It really was a gamble,’ Neill admits.

‘No one knew how those initial two hectares of Pinot would fare in what is quite an extreme climate. Gibbston is the highest region in Central, surrounded by the southern Alps – very cold in winter, heat never guaranteed, and frost can come at almost any time.

‘We had snow up the valley while I was away this year in February. Rational people shouldn’t make wine here,’ Neill half-jokes, ‘but I’ve learned that to produce great Pinot, you have to teeter on the edge of viability.’

He now owns three more vineyards: the Red Bank Farm and home base at Earnscleugh, Alexandra, bought in 2000; the Last Chance vineyard close to Alexandra, which Neill ventures ‘might be the most southerly vineyard in the world’, through which runs a small water race, hand-dug by gold miners in the 1860s; and finally the Fusilier vineyard in Bannockburn, named after his army officer father.

The Fusilier, purchased in 2013, is on Felton Road, very close to Felton Road Wines, and it’s clear the famous location meant a lot to Neill, thanks to the healthy rivalry between the two producers.

Two Paddocks at a glance

Founded: 1993

First vintage: 1997

Owner: Sam Neill

Vineyards: Red Bank Farm (Earnscleugh, Alexandra); The First Paddock (Gibbston); The Last Chance (Earnscleugh, Alexandra); The Fusilier (Bannockburn)

Varieties: Pinot Noir and Riesling

Organic: Certified BioGro since 2017

Free-range Otago boy

What makes Central Otago Pinot so special? Neill thinks for a while before replying that the wines are particularly ‘vivid’. Some claim that the gold that may still be in the soil accounts for such vivacity, but he doesn’t have a firm opinion on this himself.

Rather he looks for a source of the ‘toasted herbs’ in his wines and finds it in the wild thyme bushes that grow in large thickets across the region’s dry hills. ‘Thyme was planted by 19th-century Chinese gold diggers to ward off insects – now it’s everywhere and it can influence the wine, just as eucalyptus can do in Australia.’

Back at Red Bank Farm, 5.5ha of Pinot and Riesling are joined by many other crops, including lavender (to produce lavender oil), saffron, olives and cherries, as well as oak trees. The oak has been planted by Neill as recompense for his use of barrels in the winery. ‘It’s on my conscience,’ he says. ‘Someone using oak should be planting oak.’

Nigel Greening, the British owner of Felton Road Wines, says that Neill ‘grew up a free-range Otago boy and is always happiest when on the farm… He’s the antithesis of the famous film star with a vineyard – far more concerned with honesty in his wines than in impressing people.’

Notable Pinot wizard Larry McKenna, who has worked as consultant to Two Paddocks over many years, adds: ‘I think he feels the “celebrity winemaker” tag, but he does not sign up to it or think of himself in that way.’

Going his own way

Conversion to organic viticulture was Neill’s decision – his teammates roll their eyes when remembering his insistence. He ‘hates the scorched earth policy’ and ‘can’t bear to drive past vineyards which are conventional after seeing what herbicides do’.

After a short interruption in organic viticulture when weed control had to be used for newly acquired vineyards, Two Paddocks wines were re-certified organic by BioGro in 2017. Neill is the first to suggest that thanks to Central Otago’s low humidity and persistent winds it’s easier to farm organically here than in some areas.

Affable, relaxed but not remotely ‘luvvie’, Neill nonetheless holds some entrenched views. Most are positive – interestingly, he admires the Shiraz of former Penfolds winemaker John Duval, now of the eponymous Barossa winery.

But he has his strong dislikes; he loathes ‘horrible corks’ and was ‘absolutely infuriated’ when he lost a third of his 1999 bottles to cork taint. Since 2001, Two Paddocks has only used Stelvin screw caps. And, he declares, ‘Pinot Gris does nothing for me’, in a region where the grape is often extolled.

He does have plenty of time for Riesling, however, having been ‘converted to it in Alsace’ while he was filming there during the 1980s. ‘Riesling planted in Central Otago just sits up and says, “I love it here.” You can’t grow Riesling everywhere, like you can with Chardonnay, but it works here particularly well.’

He points to the kerosene complexity of mature Central Otago Rieslings; certainly his younger wines are promisingly delicious.

Where to next? For now, Neill seems satisfied with his four vineyards in Central Otago. ‘They are all distinctly different and there’s something Burgundian about that. The sub-regions are becoming increasingly recognised and really, I welcome it.’

As for the Two Paddocks style of Pinot: ‘We were making subtle, restrained wines 20 years ago, when Central Otago was getting a name for rather obvious fruit bombs. We continue to go our own way.’

Central Otago star power: Susy Atkins’ eight wines to try from Two Paddocks

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Do you know the feeling? You’ve got new shoes and your favourite jacket. You’ve had a good haircut. You step out into the street feeling confident and ready to take on the world… That feeling was everywhere I went, on my recent visit to Chile – winemakers brimming with enthusiasm; wines full of energy.

And nowhere was this confidence more on display than in the country’s white wines. Known generally as a source of reliable, wallet-friendly Sauvignon Blanc, Chile is now also home to terroir-driven Chardonnay, old-vine Semillon and Chenin Blanc, unusual varieties and exciting blends.

In the three decades since the country began exporting to the UK, the revolution has been dramatic. Steve Daniel, head of buying at importer Hallgarten & Novum Wines, was the first to introduce Chile to British wine lovers.

‘When I first visited the country and brought back wines to Oddbins’ shelves in 1988, the wine industry as we know it in Chile was just starting out,’ he says. ‘They had no idea of what modern wine tasted or looked like, but they did have good-quality, mostly Cabernet, grapes.’

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores for 12 new wave Chilean white wines

White wine production was in its infancy. ‘Casablanca was being investigated as a potential source of quality white grapes and the first vines were in but not producing on a commercial scale,’ explains Daniel. ‘Leyda and San Antonio were not discovered from a wine perspective – nor were any of the higher-altitude or desert vineyards that are now used for quality white wine.’

The shift in Chile’s white wine scene has been motivated by a range of local and global factors. These include climate change, the exploration of new growing regions, a focus on old-vine heritage, changes in vineyard management and winemaking techniques – including a move away from overt oak use – and the rise of boutique producers.

Cooling influences

On the subject of climate, it’s worth pointing out that Chile is much cooler than you probably think – and its coolest regions are where white vines flourish. ‘People who don’t know Chile don’t know that we’re penguins,’ quips Tomás Rivera, viticulturist at Viña Leyda.

He’s talking about the Humboldt Current, which transports cold, sub-Antarctic water north along Chile’s Pacific coast. In a narrow coastal country like Chile, which averages only 177km east-west, the influence of the sea can’t be overstated.

Over time, vineyard plantings have crept ever closer to the ocean in order to take advantage of its cooling effects. ‘The explosion of coastal vineyards has been super-important in the boom of Chilean whites,’ notes Chile expert Alistair Cooper MW, DWWA judge and president of South America’s Catad’Or World Wine Awards.

Viña Leyda was a pioneer in Leyda, planting vines in 1998, releasing its first wine in 2001 and successfully petitioning for the creation of the Leyda Valley DO in 2002. There were only two other producers there when the DO started; now there are 10.

‘The signature of Leyda is high acidity,’ notes Rivera, whose vineyards are planted with Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Riesling and Sauvignon Gris. ‘I really like Sauvignon Gris – it has a lot of potential. But Riesling is our challenge – no one knows about Riesling in Chile,’ he says.

His Riesling, planted on granitic soils and cooled by Pacific fogs, has vibrant linear acidity. Northwest of Leyda – and even closer to the sea – is the tiny Lo Abarca DO. Casa Marín is the only producer here; its founder, María Luz Marín, Chile’s first female winemaker, planted her vineyard just 4km from the Pacific, against the advice of other wine professionals but with a firm belief in the potential of cool-climate wines in Chile. Her faith was vindicated when her Sauvignon Blanc 2004 gained international recognition with a DWWA Gold medal.

‘We are one of the coolest vineyards in Chile – cooler than Leyda – and all of our wines show you coolness,’ notes Marín. What’s the signature of Lo Abarca? ‘Whites carry a silty character on the palate… And the wines age really well. We never have to acidify in the cellar – that’s why the ageing potential is so high.’ Indeed – that award-winning 2004 Sauvignon is tasting beautifully 20 years on.

Marín’s son Felipe is now in charge of winemaking, a generational change that has brought with it a stylistic shift that’s being mirrored all over Chile. ‘When Felipe arrived, he wanted wines with less alcohol, so we pick earlier,’ Marín explains. ‘I used to have a consultant from the US and the style was bigger, with higher alcohol. It’s now more delicate.’

Places not grapes

This general refinement of style has gone hand-in-hand with a better understanding of the unique terroirs that can be found across Chile.

‘Twenty years ago, we were looking for more commercial styles. In the last 10 years, there’s been

more of a focus on precision and finding a sense of place,’ explains Marcelo Papa, technical director at Concha y Toro. His top white, ‘Amelia’, from Limarí – Chile’s first ultra-premium Chardonnay – is a case in point.

One of the first to plant vines in the region, Papa has worked in Limarí since the 1990s, the style of his wines evolving as the vines matured and he gained a better understanding of the terroir. The Quebrada Seca vineyard is planted in four roughly 2.5ha blocks, 22km from the Pacific, on clay-calcareous soil.

‘Limarí is cool climate, but it’s cloudy, so there’s less sunlight. We have a similar number of degree days to Burgundy and Oregon,’ he adds. These conditions enable him to make ‘a very classic style of Chardonnay’ in the Burgundian mode.

He believes that regionality will become increasingly visible in Chile’s whites. ‘In 20 years’ time, people will be talking about places in Chile – regions – not grape varieties,’ he predicts.

‘People are looking for wines of site now, not wines of style,’ agrees Guillermo Calderón at Casas del Bosque in Casablanca – a DO that was pioneered by the influential Pablo Morandé for white wines.

‘Chile is moving towards pursuing its own identity. For a long time, we were trying to produce other styles, looking towards other regions… Now we are getting local identity for our wines.’

Going to extremes

The search for a unique identity has led winemakers to explore ever more diverse areas, venturing to the dramatic glacial landscapes of Patagonia in the deep south’s Austral region. Pioneers here include Casa Silva, the first to plant vines in Futrono, 904km south of Santiago, on volcanic slopes above Lago Ranco, in 2006.

The inaugural vintage of its Lago Ranco Riesling was released in 2016. The latest vintage reveals the potential of these maturing vines along with further proof that, in the right site, Riesling has a bright future in Chile.

Even closer to the Antarctic, Miguel Torres Chile has experimental plantings in Puerto Ibáñez and Puerto Sanchez near lake General Carrera. ‘Here there is a microclimate where temperatures are more moderate, with less extremes, without snow,’ says technical director Eduardo Jordán. ‘The biggest problem is the wind, so vineyards have to be protected with nets or natural protection with tree lines.’

The producer is still in the process of searching the region for the most suitable sites for placing the vineyards, he adds: ‘But we’re sure that this part of Chile has an important potential, especially given the climate change that has opened barriers unthinkable in recent years.’

Viña Ventisquero also has plantings near lake General Carrera. Its vineyards in Chile Chico sit at 46° 33’ latitude, in contrast to its plantings at the opposite end of the country, 690km north of Santiago at 28°S in the Atacama, the most arid desert on Earth.

‘It hasn’t rained here in the last 50 years!’ notes senior winemaker Alejandro Galaz. The Tara wines he makes from Atacama with head winemaker Felipe Tosso vividly display a sense of place.

Limestone soils, a rarity in Chile, produce Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc with a mineral profile. However, viticulture was made more complex by the soil’s high salinity levels. ‘These soils are very old – millions of years ago they used to be under the sea – so there’s a large amount of salt,’ explains Galaz.

The initial plantings, made in 2008, failed; the problem was solved by installing individual sprinkler irrigation for each vine. Fog rolling in from the ocean 30km away and a significant diurnal temperature difference ensure that the grapes retain high natural acidity. ‘The increasing age of the vines has made a difference. We are understanding the vineyard much better now.

The character of the place doesn’t allow us to do much with the wines – they have to express themselves,’ concludes Galaz.

Back to the future

Alongside the innovation of these fairly recent plantings, there has been renewed interest in the heritage of Chile’s old vines in its historic growing

regions.

‘Main viticulture in Chile started in the 16th century in Itata,’ explains Jordán. The oldest vineyards were planted by Jesuit missionaries between the coastal range and the ocean. ‘I like Itata a lot. Everything is bush vines, dry farming; soils are slate, granite, loam, clay.’

Soil specialist Pedro Parra, known as ‘Dr Terroir’, was thinking about relocating from his native Chile to Chianti in Tuscany until he tasted wines from Itata.

‘You always ignore what’s on your doorstep,’ he admits ruefully. ‘Itata is the least Chilean place in Chile. It reminds me of Barolo with its round hills. There’s no irrigation, nothing industrial, and old vines.’ He explains that the high iron content in the soils – ‘like Burgundy’ – contributes to the particular character of wines produced from these old vines.

Also like Burgundy, vineyards here are planted in a patchwork of small plots, often owned and worked by the same families for generations.

Along with neighbouring Bío Bío, Itata was home to more than 75% of Chile’s vineyard area in the early 19th century. But as the Central Valley rose to prominence from the mid-20th century, these southern vineyards were largely forgotten.

Looking southwards

Concern for the environment sparked renewed interest, as unpredictable weather patterns and water scarcity prompted many to rethink both the location of vineyards and the viability of the location of vineyards and the viability of conventional farming.

The traditional dry-farmed vineyards of Itata and Bío Bío are more resilient to water shortages – though sadly they’re not immune to all of climate change’s effects, as the devastating wildfires of 2023 proved.

Moscatel de Alejandria and Semillon are the signature whites in Itata and Bío Bío, with many ungrafted centenarian vines. Encouragingly, much is being done to preserve them – both by boutique producers such as Itata pioneer Leo Erazo, who put the region back on the map, and by larger companies such as Santa Carolina, which has collected massal selections (cuttings from the estate’s best stock) of old vines in its Bloque Herencia vineyard.

‘When vineyards in Itata were devastated by wildfires, Santa Carolina could give growers massal selections of old vines to replant,’ says head oenologist Alejandro Wedeles.

Renewed interest in heritage grapes has brought with it a return to traditional techniques. For whites, this means skin contact and the use of using large old tinajas to age its Itata whites.

‘The tinaja tends to give some earthy clay notes, but largely it’s neutral,’ explains winemaker Nicolás Pérez. ‘The idea with the tinaja wines is to show purity of fruit but with a sense of place.’

In the mix

Traditional field blends from Itata – such as Erazo’s Rogue Vine Grand Itata Blanco, made from Moscatel, Riesling and Semillon planted in a dry-farmed vineyard in 1922 – show a different side to Chilean wine.

Indeed, some of the most exciting whites I tasted for this article were blends. They range from Santa Rita’s Floresta field blend of Semillon, Sauvignon Vert, Moscatel, Torontel and Corinto, to Valdivieso’s inaugural Caballo Loco Blanco, a daring mix not only of grapes but of regions and vintages.

‘It only took me seven years to put it together,’ jokes Valdivieso head winemaker Brett Jackson, who was inspired by the slowly oxidised style of aged white Riojas.

The blend includes Moscatel de Alejandria from Itata. ‘Moscatel de Alejandria is a tough call,’ he says. ‘It has this phenolic edge. But if you put it into barrel for four years, the tannins disappear and it becomes so rich, with oxidative characters.’

Also pushing the envelope for Chilean blends is Pablo Morandé Junior, winemaker at Bodegas RE, a boutique winery set up with his famous father and siblings in Casablanca in 2008. Its experimental wines include Chardonnoir, a white blend of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.

‘We’re making new styles of wine; new for Casablanca and new for Chile,’ he says. ‘We blend wines, we blend names. We’re trying to make different wines to show other producers – to show that Chile has the potential for white blends.’

Meanwhile, in Maule, Viña Morandé planted Marsanne and Roussanne in Melozal in 2013. Chief winemaker Ricardo Baettig blends the fruit with Viognier from Casablanca to create his Rhône blend Bestiario, which is fermented and aged in concrete eggs.

‘Experiences in Europe led us to appreciate the potential of the Chilean climate with Mediterranean varieties,’ he explains. ‘We opted for unconventional varieties in Chile, such as Marsanne, Roussanne and Viognier, to highlight their potential and their ability to create an exceptionally complex and distinctive white wine.’

Baettig believes Rhône grapes could have a future in Chile. ‘In these 10 years managing vineyards of these varieties, we have learned a lot about better interpreting their characteristics. The future looks very promising!’

Although white plantings only account for 34,016ha of Chile’s total vineyard area, compared with 95,000ha for reds, Baettig is confident of the potential. ‘Beyond Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon is interesting, and also Chenin Blanc in Itata, grafted onto old País vines, is showing good results,’ he says.

Ventisquero’s Tosso agrees. ‘There is a lot more potential for whites in Chile. It’s easier to sell Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay from Chile, but there’s room for other varieties,’ he says.

Meanwhile, styles of Sauvignon and Chardonnay continue to be fine-tuned. ‘In terms of quality, Sauvignon Blanc has more potential to express its terroir. There are more terroirs in Chile that suit Sauvignon Blanc; fewer for Chardonnay. But Chardonnay quality has increased big time.’

Importantly, Chile is now making serious whites that can age. ‘It’s a challenge for Chilean whites, because consumers think of young whites from Chile,’ notes Jordan of Miguel Torres. But it’s time to rethink, tune into Chile’s optimism and explore the exciting whites on offer.

Chile’s new whites: 12 to explore

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Too often, Riesling gets a bad rap. Through much of the 20th century, American bottlings were often confusing. There was little consistency in labelling and wines made using unrelated varieties or distant relatives often adopted the name, such as ‘Grey Riesling’ or ‘Missouri Riesling’.

A 1996 ruling by the TTB (US Treasury department’s Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau) cleared up a lot of the ambiguities around the use of the name ‘Riesling’ on US wine labels. But it wasn’t until 2006 that TTB regulations doing away with the last of the misleading Riesling-based names came into force. In 2008, a sweetness scale developed and launched by the International Riesling Foundation debuted on American Riesling bottles to help dispel the common belief that all Rieslings are sweet.

Scroll down to see notes and scores for 18 US Rieslings to seek out

‘Versatility is a large part of why we enjoy working with Riesling,’ says Bryanna Cramer, assistant winemaker at Hermann J Wiemer Vineyard in the Finger Lakes, New York state. The Demeter-certified biodynamic producer manages several Riesling sites around Seneca Lake. ‘The ability for the variety to showcase a wide range of styles, from sparkling and bone-dry to semi-dry or trockenbeerenauslese dessert wines, allows us to produce wines that not only reflect the vintage and different ripeness levels, but also remain site-specific and terroir-driven.’

Spectrum of styles

Expressiveness is Riesling’s most intriguing quality. Floral and herbal aromatics flow through a tapestry of fruit such as citrus, pear, nectarine and apricot. The wines are fresh and mineral-driven with mouthwatering acidity. Each flavour sits on a sliding scale driven by place and vintage.

‘You can see incredibly different wines coming from sites that are only a few miles apart,’ says James Frey of Trisaetum Winery in Oregon. ‘With vineyards in three different AVAs, it’s one of the reasons we bottle so many Rieslings.’ From the 2022 vintage, he bottled nine: four dry, four medium-dry and one sweet.

‘I can’t tell the full story of Riesling in one wine,’ agrees Dave Bos of Bos Wine in Michigan. Using grapes from several Old Mission Peninsula vineyards, he made two Rieslings in 2021, one of which is ‘made only in the years where I can get physiological ripeness’. Harvested just five days later than the rest, the resulting wine (see below’s selection) is a fruit-forward limited release. ‘Riesling shows time and place better than any other grape,’ Bos says.

A compelling world

At Chateau Ste Michelle in Woodinville, Washington – its annual production exceeding nine million bottles makes it potentially the world’s largest Riesling producer – the wines are bold. ‘We have the advantage of our dry climate, which provides long, sunny days and cool temperatures in the evenings,’ says head white winemaker Taylor Butterfield. ‘This creates ideal conditions to help retain Riesling’s natural acidity and intensify the aromas and flavours.’

Graham Tatomer of Tatomer Wines in Santa Maria, California believes the window of opportunity is largest with Riesling. ‘There is always a choice to leave fruit on the vine longer or to take it today and make wine with a racier style,’ he says. ‘Other varieties simply do not work this way.’

When the season allows, a longer hang time is often beneficial. For Oregon vigneron Evan Martin of Martin Woods Winery, this can mean nearly 100% of his grapes will be botrytis-affected when picking starts for his late-harvest Riesling in late October. The result is a wine of some decadence (see below, 2018 Hyland Vineyard). Discovering America’s Riesling today is like seeing in technicolour after a lifetime in shades of grey. The US wine industry’s embrace of the grape has opened up a world of compelling and delicious wines worth exploring.

See notes and scores for 18 US Rieslings to seek out

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Melody Wong is director of wine at The Peninsula, London. With more than a decade’s experience as a sommelier and wine buyer, Melody has worked in Michelin-starred restaurants and luxury hotels throughout the UK, including the Four Seasons Hotel and the Carlton Tower Jumeirah in London. Her innovative approach to curating wine lists saw her nominated as Best Sommelier of the Year by GQ in 2022.

My love for Riesling comes from fond memories of living in the Swiss Alps, where we would often sit down and enjoy traditional cheese fondue with locally produced charcuterie, accompanied by a glass of Riesling. It was the perfect hearty meal on a cold winter’s day. Years later, having explored a wide variety of wines from across the world, Riesling still holds a special place in my heart.

This white grape is known for its clean, powerful scent and flavours, characterised by apple, lime and honey, and bright acidity. Sweetness and residual sugar are key elements to balance the wine and reflect the terroir and style – although this does not indicate the overall quality of the wine. Because the grape’s distinctive aromas and flavours have so much to offer it is rarely blended with other varieties and, to preserve its brightness, is not exposed to new oak.

Cooler-climate regions such as Mosel in Germany have a long history of growing Riesling in some of the world’s steepest vineyards. In Australia, the Clare and Eden Valleys offer stunning examples of dry, crisp Riesling with freshness and high acidity, which have become a benchmark of the country’s production.

Riesling’s natural acidity confers exceptional ageing potential. Mature examples often exhibit notes of smoke and honey, as well as an unmistakable petroleum-like character that many Riesling lovers seek.

Riesling’s endless diversity makes it particularly versatile when it comes to pairing with different cuisines. Spicy dishes such as Chinese kung pao chicken or Thai red curry balance nicely with German kabinett or spätlese. Roast chicken pairs perfectly with Alsace grand cru Riesling, which, when followed by apple crumble served with a glass of trockenbeerenauslese, makes for the ideal Sunday feast. The possibilities are endless – you can choose between bone-dry, off-dry, medium-sweet, botrytised or ice wine.

Riesling is a well-known secret within the wine world, but remains largely underrated among consumers – perhaps due to its German spellings, classifications and label requirements, which can often be confusing. However, once you familiarise yourself with the different options available, the doors are opened to the world of this fantastic grape. Having tasted wines from the Finger Lakes region in upstate New York, the smaragd wines from Austria’s Wachau and Kusuda Wines’ Riesling from Martinborough, among others, it’s clear to me that Riesling is a grape that delivers purity and truly expresses its origins, while continuing to excite and surprise with every sip.

Discover Riesling: Melody’s three to try

Knoll, from the Wachau, is one of my favourite producers in Austria. Weingut Knoll, Loibner Riesling Smaragd 2022 (£31 Lay & Wheeler) is a dry, powerful, rich and complex Riesling that can age for long periods. Try it if you’re after a full-bodied wine without the taste of new oak.

Trimbach, Cuvée Frédéric Emile Riesling 2017 (£56-£60 Eton Vintners, Hennings, NY Wines) is a gorgeous wine from a historic producer, family-owned in Alsace across 13 generations. It’s from vines with an average age of 45 years and matured for a number of years, producing a wine that is full of personality, concentration and beautiful minerality. On the palate, it is very balanced and pairs well with seafood, poultry and cheese.

Canadian Icewine is another gem not to be missed. Peller, Signature Series Riesling Icewine 2019 (£48-£55/37.5cl Amathus Drinks, Fareham Wine Cellar, The Great Wine Co.) from Ontario is made with grapes that are naturally frozen and harvested by hand at temperatures of at least -10°C, maximising the concentration and sweetness of the fruit. Lusciously sweet and incredibly pure, with flavours of tropical fruits, orange blossoms and delicate spices, it’s best served chilled and enjoyed with desserts such as summer trifle.

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The nearby Pacific Coast offers maritime influence that makes the Willamette Valley the growing region that it is. These conditions and the cool autumn weather, which is so well suited for Pinot Noir, make it a brilliant match for Riesling. Cool climate varieties, while not always mentioned in the same breath – as in the case of Pinot Noir and Riesling – tend to grow well together.

I believe that the top Rieslings from Oregon’s Willamette Valley are the very best of the variety on the West Coast. And that they are every bit as good as those found in New York’s Finger Lakes. While Riesling in the Willamette Valley might struggle for attention owing to the success of Pinot and the rising popularity of Oregon’s Chardonnay, it deserves to be part of the conversation about the top varieties in the Willamette Valley.

Cool to be cool climate

The best examples of Riesling from the Willamette Valley are not made in a lean, bone-dry style but rather lean into the variety’s complexities. The oldest vines, in particular, produce wines of incredible depth. Spice, floral fragrances and fruit complexity are the hallmarks of the Rieslings made at Brooks and Trisaetum, Riesling stalwarts of the Willamette Valley. Each makes multiple single-vineyard expressions that reflect a real commitment to the variety.

‘We have a greater diversity of Riesling in our cellar than any other variety,’ says Brooks head winemaker Claire Jarreau. ‘It’s by design, with 16 vineyards now representing almost every sub-AVA of the Willamette Valley. The Rieslings in our cellar express wildly differently throughout the valley but share common themes related to soil types, vine age and farming practices.’

‘Though we love creating stand-alone wines that decidedly show a sense of place, we also enjoy assembling harmonious blends that offer a broad perspective of the Willamette Valley through Riesling. These wines lead with layered and expressive fruit, high tension on the palate, and ample acidity that speak to our cool, windy, and at times marginal climate for growing Riesling.’

Among Oregon’s next wave, including names like Authentique and Martin Woods, winemakers are showing a renewed appreciation for Riesling, treating it with the same deference that they do Pinot Noir.

‘There are a lot of similarities in the growing conditions between Burgundy and Alsace,’ explains the French-born Hyland Estates winemaker Anne Sery. They share a couple of varieties: Pinot Noir, Pinot Blanc, and Pinot Gris. So I don’t think it’s a leap at all to have Oregon growing top-quality Riesling.’

‘Riesling is a very late-ripening variety,’ Sery continues. ‘The fall weather in Oregon tends to be nice and dry. A lot of the Riesling planted here is grown on sites that tend to be cooler because of their elevation or exposure to wind.’

While Eyrie founder David Lett did not include Riesling in his original plantings when he broke ground in the region, many of those who followed in his footsteps did. This has resulted in some of the valley’s oldest vines being Riesling – most notably those at the McMinnville AVA site, Hyland Vineyard.

‘When Hyland was planted, they tested everything,’ Sery says, ‘including things like Syrah and Merlot. What remains is what ended up growing well; we have Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Riesling and Gewürztraminer.’

‘What makes the Hyland Riesling special is that it is still own-rooted, and the vines are very healthy. The vines are 50 years old and don’t need much management, to be honest. Their yield is self-moderated, and we always get amazing acidity for the perfect level of sugar and flavour ripeness. It has been one of our flagship wines, along with the Pinot Noir, from the Coury clone since we started the brand in 2009, and it has been one of our main areas of focus.’

Special soils

In addition to the climate, winemaker Mark Vlossak believes soils make all the difference, particularly those where his Riesling is planted in the Eola-Amity Hills renowned vineyard Temperance Hill.

Vlossak founded St. Innocent Winery in the late 1980s. Some good fortune in the vineyard and an upbringing filled with wonderful German Rieslings led to his wholly unique Willamette Valley bottling, made in a Kabinett halbtrocken style.

His Riesling block at Temperance Hill sits at the very top, perhaps the highest in all of the Eola-Amity appellation. It’s a bit of an anomaly given the sub-region’s incredible reputation for Pinot Noir and, more and more, Chardonnay. ‘I had taken the block over from Rob Stuart, who was making sparkling wine for his Big Fire label. They were own-rooted Pinot Noir vines and eventually died from phylloxera.’

‘When I told Dai Crisp (the Temperance Hill vineyard manager) that I wanted to replant the block to Riesling, he looked at me like I had two heads,’ Vlossak recalls. Crisp was concerned that Vlossak would pick the fruit too late but relented when he told him he aimed to create a Kabinett-style Riesling.

‘I used two different clones, and I couldn’t get them all at once, so the block was planted over two years, and now it’s on its eighth or ninth leaf (fifth or sixth harvest), says Vlossak. ‘The soils were so poor and shallow that we lost a bunch of the vines, initially, but it had this blue silicate material in the rock, and that made me think of the blue slate soils in the Mosel.

‘I honestly can’t believe the wine is as good as it is,’ Vlossak continues. ‘I didn’t think I’d be able to make a Riesling like this for 20 years. It’s got diesel notes and classic secondary characteristics. There is so much complexity, and it’s only 10.5% alcohol. It’s honestly better than I imagined it would be.’

Claire Jarreau agrees that the Willamette Valley’s soils are special for Riesling. ‘With the diversity of soil types in the Willamette Valley – volcanic basalts, marine sediments and glacial deposits – we feel both the pleasure and responsibility to showcase the distinctiveness of our region through single-vineyard wines. This is true for us with both Pinot Noir and Riesling.’

A selection of 10 Oregon Rieslings

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The name Maximin Grünhaus has long been among the top legacies in Germany’s Mosel-Saar-Ruwer wine region.

Over the decades the name has consistently drawn eager bids at the famed Grosser Ring or ‘Great Ring’, the annual wine auction in Trier, with buyers happy to pay among the highest amounts to snap up barrels of Grünhaus Riesling that aren’t marketed elsewhere.

Located in Mertesdorf, just outside of the city of Trier, along the thin ribbon of the Ruwer River, the Grünhaus estate, the arched gate framing a manor house which dates to 1597 and, behind the house, its steeply sloping vineyards, cuts an impressive figure in this equally impressive landscape.

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores for 16 new releases from Maximin Grünhaus

Historic in many ways

The Maximin Grünhaus estate was given to the Benedictine monks as the monastery of Saint-Maximin of Trier in the year 966 CE. Seized by Napoleon in the 18th century, it was acquired at auction by an ancestor of the von Schubert family in 1882, and now Maximin von Schubert, the sixth generation, owns and operates the legendary estate, having taken over from his father Carl in 2014.

In an interesting twist: Karl Marx’s father owned two hectares of vines on the modern-day Grünhaus estate in the Herrenberg Grosse Lage parcel. Heinrich Marx, a lawyer from Trier, bought the vineyard land as an investment.

When his father died in 1838, Karl Marx took ownership of the vineyard until his mother purchased it from him. Marx sold the last five full barrels of the family’s Riesling upon his mother’s death. While Marx may have eschewed the concept of profiting off personal property, he seems to have made an exception for Grünhaus Riesling.

Maximin’s great-great-great-grandfather bought the estate because of its long-held reputation. Documents from the 16th and 17th centuries show that the rate charged for grapes from Grünhaus vineyards was two and half times that from other nearby vines, a sign of the esteem garnered over the years. It remains a sterling expression of German Riesling today.

Many shades of green

The name ‘Grünhaus’ translates to ‘green house’ and dates back to 600 CE. There is plenty of speculation about the origins of the name, though, as it was not a colour historically associated with Saint-Maximin of Trier. There are theories of course. This portion of the Ruwer Valley where the one-time abbey stands remains verdant and largely undeveloped. The Grünhaus estate includes 34ha of vineyards, and the nearby lush Grünhauser forest (also owned by the estate) grows over much of the land.

The hill where the vineyards sit, the Grüneberg, has blue Devonian and red slates towards the top. Maximin von Schubert tells me the slate goes greenish in colour in some places. While he’s not sure of the chemical composition, he’s often found it in the roots of downed oak trees in the forest next to the vineyards. It’s likely veins of igneous diabase, a greenish basaltic rock which is found in the region.

On the other hand, the simplest explanation may be the most obvious. Renovations of the manor house in the 1980s showed evidence that, on more than one occasion, it was formerly painted green. So perhaps it was just that St Maximin lived in a green house.

A holy hierarchy

The three estate vineyards are the ‘Bruderberg’, the ‘Abtsberg’ and the ‘Herrenberg’ which run from right to left along the face of the unbelievably steep hillside. Like many of the top sites throughout the region, these names correspond to church hierarchies with wines of better quality going to those of higher rank. The south-facing slope of the Grüneberg is where the vineyards sit with gradients as steep as 70% in places.

Bruderberg

The Bruderberg is named for the simple ‘brothers’ of the Maximin Grünhaus priory when the abbey was established more than a thousand years ago, as the wines from this parcel were designated for their consumption. It is the smallest of the three sites, at only one hectare and planted exclusively to Riesling, at 140-170m in elevation with steep slopes between 50-70%. The soils are blue Devonian slate like the neighbouring Abtsberg cru.

The defining feature of the Bruderberg is that it abuts the forest on two sides. The forest protects the smaller parcel from cold winds from the north and west while also shading it from the afternoon sun almost completely. This means despite its lower elevation, it’s the coolest parcel of the three Grünhaus Grosse Lagen.

Herrenberg

The wines from the Herrenberg were designated for the abbey’s choirmasters; at 19ha, they must have done quite a bit of singing. Planted with both Riesling and Pinot Blanc, the size of this site lends it a good deal of diversity.

The Herrenberg sits between 190-290 metres with a gradient between 20-60%. There are sections of blue Devonian slate, with reddish slate (also Devonian in origin) appearing on the flatter portion of the cru, which abuts the forest. The slate breaks up, allowing the roots to go deeper, and at Grünhaus they believe this gives a spicy character to the wines.

Abtsberg

The Abtsberg sits dead-centre between the other two sites, representing the estate’s top wines, a veritable sweet spot of sorts. The wines from this site were designated for the Abbotts, the top of the monastery’s hierarchy. Pure blue Devonian slate, the Abtsberg slopes outwardly, facing both southeast and southwest at different orientations. This top site is 14ha in total, at heights of 140 to 270 metres and with gradients between 40-75%.

It is a legendary site and produces the estate’s top wines each vintage, some of the most age-worthy in all of Germany. The shallow, fossil-rich soils impart a more significant mineral impact to the wines than those from the slate subsoils. Pinot Noir is also planted in this Riesling-centric site, the top cru at Grünhaus.

Innovation meets tradition

Maximin von Schubert has been running Maximin Grünhaus since 2014. The young proprietor, named after the estate, believes that both the changing climate and modernity require innovation for things to retain their classical nature. His work maintaining character and elegance includes progressive stewardship of the vines and nearby forests and waterways.

‘Uniquely, we’re one of only three complete monopole estates in all of Germany,’ von Schubert explains. ‘We have 34ha of monopole vineyards and another 210ha of agricultural lands and forest. There is a great deal of stewardship that we are responsible for.’ For the region’s wines, mainly those made in the Prädikat style, to still be possible, progressive approaches to farming, viticulture, and even forestry will be necessary.

Climate change is unique in its challenge for Germany. Although warming temperatures in the near term have benefitted cool regions like the Mosel-Saar-Ruwer, there are longer-term issues. Most glaringly are concerns about rising sugars without the accompanying acids, which have long made the ethereal Prädikat wines unique to this place. As temperatures continue to increase, crafting Kabinett or Auselese-style wines in some sites has become more vexing with every passing year, and German Eiswein production has almost entirely disappeared.

During my visit, von Schubert was experimenting with drones for spraying – something that hadn’t been used in the region up to that point, where they have historically sprayed the steep slopes by helicopter. Drones give them greater control and accuracy and are more sustainable and economical than flying helicopters.

His willingness to push what is possible regarding the best available technologies in vineyard management, while remaining steadfast to traditional approaches in the cellar, demonstrates his commitment to the estate’s 1,000-year-old traditions and his family and region’s future.

New releases from Maximin Grünhaus

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The Mosel River gets its start in the lower elevation Vosges mountain range in eastern France, flowing through Luxembourg before making its way to western Germany. It joins with the Rhine in Koblenz, but its middle section, known in German as the Mittelmosel, is where a series of conditions come together to produce some of the greatest white wines in the world.

Between the riverbanks and the steep slate slopes that jut skyward at seemingly impossible gradients, villages of varying degrees of bucolic charm dot the Mosel Valley. These sites offer wine lovers travelling the region plenty of places to stay, eat and explore one of Germany’s true treasures.

The history of wine cultivation in the Mosel Valley goes back to Roman times. Vineyards were planted along the river to provide wine for troops stationed in the region rather than transporting it from further afield. While the Mosel Valley represents Riesling royalty, for many Germans, the region stands out as a vacation spot for camping, cycling and gourmet dining in the valley’s quaint and quiet villages.

A river runs through it

The Mosel (along with the Douro Valley) may be one of the only wine regions in the world where you can see all of the valley’s top vineyard sites from the water. One of the best ways to get a real sense of the Mosel’s Grosse Lagen (equivalent to grands crus) is by riverboat. While there are several multi-day Mosel cruises, you can opt for a much shorter trip. A slow-winding, one-hour boat ride leaves from Bernkastel-Kues almost hourly in the high season and will take you past many of the most famous Riesling vineyards in all the world.

From the famous Bernkasteler Doctor above the town of Bernkastel-Kues with its legendary wines, the boat cruise passes Graacher Domprobst and Wehlener Sonnenuhr. It winds its way north to the steep red slates of Ürziger Würzgarten and Erdener Prälat. From there, you can disembark and visit the ruins of an ancient Roman wine press near the town of Erden, at the base of the region’s top vineyard sites.

Base camp in Bernkastel-Kues

The town of Bernkastel-Kues is well located for the Mosel Valley’s wine highlights, top vineyards and charming villages that dot the valley. The Bernkastel side of the river is particularly charming. It has a bustling character that lasts into the evening when some of the Mosel’s sleepier villages have shuttered for the day. The town has adorable half-timber architecture, a picturesque atmosphere, tiny alleyways and a lovely market square right out of a storybook; it’s a great place to station yourself to explore up and down the river.

Bernkastel-Kues sits in the shadow of the ruins of the Landshut castle that looms tall over this part of the Mosel dating to the 1200s, and some of the region’s most famous vineyards like Bernkasteler Doctor and Bernkasteler Lay. Pass through the Graach Gate, and you can wander the legendary hillside vineyards within 10 metres or so of town.

Bernkastel-Kues is complete with a number of great local restaurants, hotels and wine shops that carry some of the hardest-to-find Rieslings in the world.

Top tastings

Let’s face it: you came to the Mosel to taste some of the world’s best Rieslings, so you likely have a few places in mind. There is such a range of Riesling producers in the region and they can vary greatly in their size and accessibility. Do not plan to arrive without a prior appointment, or you may be greatly disappointed.

Weingut Willi Schaefer

In the tiny village of Graach, the iconic Willi Schaefer has been making wines for generations. The ethereal Rieslings are some of the most sought-after and still reasonably priced in all the world. It is a family operation (of two people), so appointments are required, and you should reach out as far in advance as possible. They will do their best to accommodate you. Appointments are from April to July only.

Weingut Willi Schaefer

Hauptstraße 130

54470 Graach an der Mosel

Germany

Tel: +49 (0) 6531 8041

Weingut Joh. Jos. Prüm

In the village of Wehlen (just across the river from Graach), another name in Riesling royalty is that of J. J. Prüm. Perched just above the river with exceptional views of the sundial at the Wehlener Sonnenuhr Grosse Lage, the source of some of its most sought-after wines. The Rieslings are pure classic, off-dry expressions of clarity, depth and brilliance that refuse to chase the stylish Grosses Gewächs category. A visit to the tasting parlour at J. J. Prüm is highly sought after, and appointments are required.

Weingut Joh. Jos. Prüm

Uferallee 19

54470 Bernkastel-Kues

Tel: +49 (0) 6531 3091

Weingut Dr. Loosen

Dr Erni Loosen is the greatest ambassador for the Mosel to the rest of the world. He has winery projects in the American states of Oregon and Washington, as well as Germany’s Pfalz. Loosen is a large producer with uncompromising quality. From dry Grosse Gewächse to numerous other wines made from Grosse Lagen to value Rieslings available at Costco, there is a high quality across the entire range. The Loosen winery has a large tasting space and patio to accommodate guests in the summer. Appointments are required for tasting.

Weingut Dr. Loosen

St. Johannishof 1

54470 Bernkastel-Kues

Tel: +49 (0) 6531 3426

Weingut Schloss Lieser Thomas Haag

The Riesling that Thomas Haag makes at his estate, Schloss Lieser, needs no introduction. Named for the adjacent Schloss Lieser castle, the winery and tasting room is open to the public. Haag, whose father Wilhelm founded Fritz Haag, restored the reputation of Schloss Lieser with the help of his wife Ute in the early 1990s and then purchased the estate. Schloss Lieser makes a wide range of Riesling, from classic Kabinett to bone-dry Grosse Gewächse wines, at a wide range of prices. The tasting room is open Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday: 10am-5pm and Saturdays: 11am-3pm.

Weingut Schloss Lieser

Am Markt 1-5

54470 Lieser

Tel. +49 (0) 6531 6431

How to get there and around

There are two airport options close to the Middle Mosel. The large international Frankfurt Airport is less than a 2-hour drive away, but direct UK flights also go into Frankfurt-Hahn. A rental car is your most reliable way to get around the Mosel Valley. Given how small the villages are, public transit service is intermittent. Cars can be rented at either airport location.

Your Mosel Valley address book

Restaurants

German food is highly underrated, and the villages of the Middle Mosel are dotted with some fantastic restaurants. Here are my top recommendations.

Zeltinger Hof

You came to the Mosel Valley to drink Riesling, and no one has the list that Zeltinger Hof has assembled. The list features more than 2,200 bottles, over 2,000 of which are Riesling with vintages that date to 1901. In addition to a deep list, the restaurant offers wines at reasonable prices from names that are tough to find, like Keller, Schaefer and nine different wines by Egon Müller. The food at Zeltinger Hof is a fresh, seasonal take on German classics with plenty of creative preparation, and all of it is very reasonably priced. In the summer, there is plenty of outdoor seating at a charming square in the village of Zeltingen.

Zeltinger Hof

Kurfürstenstrasse 76

54492 Zeltingen-Rachtig

Tel: +49 (0) 6532 93 82 0

Culinarium at Weinromantikhotel Richtershof

High gastronomy and an extensive wine list with 10 pages of Mosel Riesling are on offer at Culinarium in the well-pointed Weinromantikhotel Richtershof, which boasts over 380 years of local history. The hotel is a former winery dating to the 17th century in the sleepy village of Mülheim. The restaurant serves thoughtful preparations, multi-course options with local specialities like the Bavarian duck breast and crispy pike perch. You can opt to pair dessert with a Trockenbeerenauslese from the 1940s or 50s.

Weinromantikhotel Richtershof

Hauptstrasse 81-83

54486 Mülheim

Tel: +49 (0) 6534 9480

Puricelli at Schloss Lieser

The 19th-century castle is now a Marriott Autograph Collection property offering hotel accommodation and a fantastic dining experience at Puricelli, with prix fixe options of both three and five courses with local wine pairings. Puricelli offers fresh modern takes on the German classics of both duck and venison, which pair well with local Spätburgunder (Pinot Noir).

Schloss Lieser

Moselstrasse 33

54470 Lieser

Tel: +49 (0) 6531 98 69 90

Accommodation

Deinhard’s

Deinhard’s is one of the first buildings you’ll see as you enter Bernkastel. The hotel is part of a larger complex that includes a spa, restaurant and a private members’ wine storage vault. Modern and luxurious with views across the river to the Kues side, or into the vineyards above the town, Deinhard’s is well-priced and perfectly located with a fantastic breakfast, parking garage and large, air-conditioned and well-furnished rooms. Deinhard’s opened in July of 2022 with a brand new interior inside a 17th-century building.

Gestade 12

54470 Bernkastel-Kues

Tel: +49 (0) 6531 971540

Weingut Dr. Loosen guesthouse

In addition to being one of the region’s leading names in wine, Erni Loosen is quite the host. The Dr. Loosen winery has a number of new guest rooms available in a building adjacent to the winery and tasting room. Accommodation comes with air-conditioning and breakfast included. There is always the possibility that you’ll bump into Erni or his equally famous dog running around the winery.

Weingut Dr. Loosen

St. Johannishof 1

54470 Bernkastel-Kues

Tel: +49 (0) 6531 3426

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Lake Michigan, the fifth largest lake in the world, is an integral part of quality grape growing in the state. The Michigan coastline is extensive and full of peninsulas formed thousands of years ago due to glaciation. Arctic glaciers pushed south during the ice ages and carved out the major Great Lakes basin. The lake accumulates heat during the growing season and retains it through the autumn when temperatures drop, thus extending the growing season and giving the ‘lake effect’ necessary to produce quality wine.

‘Our vineyards hug the shores of one of the largest freshwater inland seas in the world, in a land once carved out by glaciers – and this unique terroir creates some real magic in any bottle of Michigan wine,’ says Patrick Brys, president & CEO of Brys Estate Vineyard & Winery.

Riesling: Michigan’s great grape

The latest figures show that Riesling is the most widely planted vinifera grape in Michigan, with 29% of plantings. Over 930ha of vinifera grapes are grown in the state, 270 of them Riesling.

Considered one of the great white grapes of the world, Riesling is lauded by experts for its purity and versatility. Despite this, many consumers believe that all Riesling is sweet, when in fact, the grape can be vinified from a bone-dry wine to the stickiest botrytised style. Riesling is known for its prominent aromatics and high acidity. The naturally high acidity from the grape can be balanced with residual sugar, usually from a halted fermentation. Alcohol levels are generally low, sometimes even in the single digits.

The best regions for Michigan Riesling

For quality grape-growing regions in Michigan, we look to Traverse Wine Coast and Lake Michigan Shore, located in the northwest and southwest corners of the state, respectively. Michigan, shaped like a mitten (or mitt) has 5,200 kilometres of the nation’s largest freshwater coastlines. ‘We have a range of Riesling styles in Michigan. Including more commonly recognised late harvest or sweeter Rieslings, but also dry in style and similar to the highest class Trocken and Alsatian producers,’ says Emily Dockery, executive director of the Michigan Wine Collaborative.

Home to nearly 40 wineries, the Traverse Wine Coast in the north includes two peninsulas moderated by the massive waters of Lake Michigan. The Leelanau and Old Mission Peninsula wine trails both provide optimal expressions of winemaking. They showcase the influence of the lake with very fruit-forward wines. These two peninsulas, north on either side of Traverse City, are responsible for 55% of the state’s production.

In the southwest corner of the state, with 130km of coastline is the Lake Michigan Shore AVA. With 15 winery members, it accounts for approximately 40% of the state’s production. This region is home to the oldest and longest-running winery in the state, St. Julian, founded in 1921. The area is slightly warmer than in the north, giving it an extra two to three weeks for the growing season.

Says Adam McBride, president of the Lake Michigan Shore Wine Trail and owner/winemaker at Hickory Creek Winery: ‘While refreshing acidity is constant across Michigan Rieslings, the wines in the Lake Michigan Shore seem to have a bit more texture and deeper fruit notes. We’re getting more peach, pear, apple and orange phenolics here compared to lighter citrus like lemon and lime in the northern AVAs.’

How Michigan Riesling tastes

The cool-climate wines wines of Michigan have a strong backbone of acidity and fruit-forward aromas and flavours, specifically with Riesling. As is common with the variety, it is vinified from dry to sweet, including botrytised and ice wine styles. McBride says: ‘The constant characteristics across Michigan Rieslings are bright acidity, lower alcohol and aromatic stone fruit and citrus notes. Michigan Rieslings are refreshing, easy to drink and meant to be paired with food.’

Pairing Riesling with food

With the proximity of Lake Michigan, local freshwater fish is a plentiful and a natural pairing with Michigan Riesling. Simple grilled fish from the lake, including salmon and trout, works well with a dry Riesling with a small hint of residual sugar. For a more flavour-packed fish dish such as honey garlic salmon, an off-dry Riesling gives a nice interplay of sweetness and acidity to cut through the sweetness of the sauce.

The most common pairing with Riesling is any mention of ‘spicy Asian food’. More specifically, the high acidity and slight residual sugar in a Michigan Riesling can counteract and balance the spice from dishes such as gochujang noodles, Thai coconut curry, or a spicier curry vindaloo.

Cherries, as an agricultural crop, reign in Michigan. It is the number one state for cherry production in the country. Spiced cherry chutney over roasted pork tenderloin pairs well with a dry Michigan Riesling. On the sweeter side of things, a sweet Riesling or ice wine paired with a fresh-baked cherry cobbler shows how the tartness in the cherries plus the acidity in the Riesling can match each other.

Best Michigan Rieslings to try

This selection of bottles covers the styles and regions mentioned above. In general, the Rieslings from Michigan are affordable and approachable.

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Eden Valley winemakers will reflect on the 2023 Riesling vintage for two powerful reasons. First, its long and cool harvest, which guaranteed rich fruit that retained strong acidity. And second, the death of inspirational pioneer and Riesling master John Vickery.

Curiously, the influence of both factors had a bearing on the 2023 vintage, which became evident at a recent gathering of Eden Valley wine producers presenting a comparative tasting of their new-release Rieslings.

Scroll down for notes and scores of 15 Eden Valley Rieslings from the 2023 vintage

Assembling a wine industry tasting of almost 50 Rieslings from this sub-region of the Barossa in South Australia is now an annual event. It celebrates Eden Valley having a very specific identity to the Barossa Valley, with distinctly different soil profiles, elevation and topography.

The tasting also amplifies Eden Valley’s place among Australia’s preeminent Riesling locations, as a strong rival to producers in the Clare Valley, Tasmania and Frankland River in Western Australia.

What was evident among these new releases is the enduring legacy of Vickery, who was instrumental in establishing a style that captured fine, delicate flavours and continues to define the attributes of Australia’s best Rieslings.

His Leo Buring Riesling from 1955 generated unprecedented excitement for Riesling at the time, and signalled the first white wines of consequence in Australia.

The great and the good of Eden

Vickery’s passing on 23 September at the age of 90, having won more than 50 trophies and 400 gold medals across more than 50 years as a winemaker, was acknowledged by the gathered winemakers.

He was remembered for setting exacting standards in his winery, which others in the Barossa noted – especially after Vickery’s major awards began rolling in – and duly followed suit. Excellence throughout the region blossomed, putting Eden Valley Riesling on a pedestal. Standards have never diminished.

It was appropriate that the tribute to Vickery was spoken by Andrew Wigan, an acolyte of the late great Peter Lehmann and master winemaker responsible for the revered Wigan Reserve Riesling made by Peter Lehmann Wines.

Wigan still serves as a consultant in his retirement, offering advice on several impressive Eden Valley Rieslings from the current vintage, including Tomfoolery and Gibson Wines.

Other disciples continue to follow John Vickery’s lead, most notably Phil Lehmann, son of Peter Lehmann, who had worked with Vickery to launch the Vickery Riesling label in 2016.

Phil is now producing his own classic style of Eden Valley Riesling with his boutique Max & Me label. But he also makes Riesling for Eden Hall Wines, remaining true to the Vickery winemaking gospel, with all wines stellar examples of poise and purity.

Divergent interpretations

However, there is more than one way to make Riesling, as the diverse spread of offerings at the 2023 vintage tasting illustrated.

While the favourable 2023 vintage showed generous flavours and long palate length, a broad variety of styles ranged from severe and austere, to lush wines with more rounded mid-palate texture, to vivacious, sunny wines carrying a trace of residual sugar. To presume Eden Valley Riesling is only about citrus blossom, steely acidity and a mineral lick is a mistake.

To emphasise this, several Eden Valley producers now issue more than one Riesling, not only to identify terroir differences but also to experiment with different production styles and textures.

The most enthusiastic purveyors of multiple Riesling expressions are John and Belinda Hughes, whose Rieslingfreak label produces a dozen different styles each vintage, sourced from two regions.

‘It’s a grape that allows – and deserves – many different types of expression,’ says John. ‘So that’s what we’ve done over many vintages, and every style deserves its place.’

Styles of substance

This path has inspired others in the Eden Valley to produce more than one style of Riesling, including Pewsey Vale, Henschke, Hutton Vale, Thorn-Clarke and Chaffey Bros. Even outsiders to the region who buy parcels of Eden Valley fruit from individual grape growers see great merit in releasing more than one expression of Eden Valley Riesling.

‘Each vineyard has such individual personality, that they insist on being handled separately,’ explains winemaker Elena Brooks of Dandelion Vineyards, based in McLaren Vale.

‘Fruit from the Wonderland vineyard, planted in 1912, is super special. It has such purity; you can’t blend it. The Enchanted Garden vineyard produces fruit of a fuller flavour, with less stern acidity and is more immediately approachable. It’s okay for us to have two different styles and celebrate both.’

Producing more than one version of Riesling also has a commercial rationale. Sam and Angus Wardlaw’s Brothers at War label offer a pair of starkly different Rieslings, deliberately designed to appease separate aesthetic and commercial objectives.

‘We love serious Riesling, but that style seems too severe for a big part of the marketplace,’ says Sam, ‘so we also make a fresher, low alcohol, more approachable style of Riesling as well, to introduce a new, younger audience to this grape variety.

‘It’s working, so we get to expand the Riesling fan club a little bit further.’

Eden Valley 2023 Riesling: 15 top wines to try

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The region’s vintners welcomed the 2021 vintage after what was a cataclysmic year in 2020, marred by wildfire smoke. The heat dome phenomenon was the signature event of the growing season. Yet, as in the Willamette Valley further to the north, it occurred early enough in the summer not to impact the vintage’s final wines. Yields were below average, and the dry conditions marked the beginning of a drought that is still ongoing in this part of Oregon.

Overall, the wines from 2021 in Southern Oregon are riper in style, and the white wines show brilliant balance. While many of the red wines have yet to be released, they are tending towards opulence and ripeness overall.

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores for 21 top wines from Southern Oregon in 2021

Warm but not hot

‘The 2021 growing season started somewhat inauspiciously in the Applegate Valley,’ said Nate Wall, winemaker for biodynamic Troon Vineyard. ‘We had a cool March, which ended with a late April spring frost. We prune our vines quite late, at the very end of winter, in an attempt to delay bud break for this exact reason.’

‘The good news here was the cooler spring also delayed bud break in most varieties,’ Wall continued. ‘There were only a handful of vines susceptible to the effects of the frost when it occurred. We had a much drier than normal spring, leading to a slightly drier than normal summer. This really kept disease pressure low, so we could slightly back off on our already minimal organic spray program.’

‘The vintage was one of the five warmest on record in the region,’ commented climatologist and owner of Abacela winery, Dr Greg Jones. ‘It was also very dry, starting the slide into drought conditions we have seen over the past couple of years, and that continues today.’

‘The major weather event of the 2021 vintage came over three days in late June. A heat dome over British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest,’ Jones continued. ‘All-time temperature records were broken by 5-10 degrees. Weather stations throughout Southern Oregon broke records during this time as well, with temperatures reaching 45-47°C.

‘Fortunately, the plant growth and fruit development stages at the time [post-flowering] were such that there was not as much damage to the vines or developing berries as anticipated. Plus, growers were well aware of the coming heat wave from forecasts and used irrigation to hydrate the vines during the event.’

The growing season settled in nicely after the heat dome with steady, somewhat cooler temperatures than average in Southern Oregon.

‘From mid-August until late September, the weather was steady and seasonal, with an average high of 28° C and no major heat spikes. Weather during harvest was dry and allowed for the picking of clean fruit of excellent quality. We saw moderate alcohol levels and good acidity overall,’ Brian Gruber of Irvine & Roberts Vineyards reports.

The resulting wines

‘The conditions of 2021 resulted in slightly more hedonistic wines,’ Wall reported. ‘That cooler summer allowed for really nice ripening, so we had these ripe, concentrated fruit flavours with more approachable tannins. This was due to more phenolic ripeness and slightly less whole cluster tannin.’

‘So the wines, on the whole, have been very well received. I am not sure if there will be a slight sacrifice to the long-term ageability of these wines because of this amalgamation of factors – time will tell.’

Southern Oregon 2021: Top-wines tasted

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The Mosel Valley is seemingly rife with winemakers named Prüm. Indeed, members of the Prüm family have inhabited the village of Wehlen, a wine-growing epicentre of the Mosel, as far back as the 12th century.

The bedrock for generations of wine-growing at Prüm’s was the original estate of S. A. Prüm, the winery established in the early 1800s by Sebastian Alois Prüm. It was Sebastian’s brother, Jodocus Prüm, who installed a sundial on a rocky outcrop of the Wehlener vineyards in 1842, lending the word Sonnenuhr, or sundial, to the vineyard’s name.

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores for 10 Rieslings from Joh. Jos. Prüm

In 1911, S. A. Prüm was split among Sebastian’s seven grandchildren, the oldest being Johann Josef Prüm. S. A. Prüm and its descendant wineries still thrive in the Mosel, among them, Weins-Prüm and Studert-Prüm, but also Jos Christoffel Jun, Dr Loosen and Dr Pauly-Bergweiler. In the Rheingau, even Robert Weil is a Prüm descendant.

Of all the Prüms, however, no winery has become more iconic for its singular, even stalwart, expression of the Mosel than Joh. Jos. Prüm. The wines of J. J. Prüm are a celebration of the German wine classification system, Prädikatsweine – luminous, ethereal expressions of kabinett, spätlese and auslese, along with the rare (and astronomically pricey) beerenauslese, eiswein and trockenbeerenauslese.

The estate produces only Riesling, and although dry wines increasingly dominate both production and sales in Germany, J. J. Prüm produces virtually no dry wines.

Since 2003, the estate has been helmed by Dr. Katharina Prüm and her father Dr. Manfred Prüm, who succeeded his own father at the estate in 1969. For twenty years, they have served as co-owners and co-winemakers of the estate.

‘There was never any deliberate division of labour or duties,’ says Katharina. ‘At first, I was functioning more as an observer. I took on responsibilities step by step and now, as my father turns 90 [in 2024], maybe things have flipped,’ she says.

Jewels of the Middle Mosel

J. J. Prüm is anchored in Wehlen, a picturesque village of the Mittelmosel, or Middle Mosel. Compared to the cooler Saar and Ruwer valleys, the narrow, snaking valley of the Middle Mosel produces Riesling that is distinctly ripe, often brimming with fruit, yet racy, filigreed and electric too.

The estate’s holdings span 22ha in the heart of the Middle Mosel and include celebrated vineyards in Bernkasteler Badstube and Zeltinger Sonnenuhr. But the crown jewels of J. J. Prüm’s estate are its sites in the Wehlener Sonnenuhr and Graacher Himmelreich – two adjacent vineyards known to produce many of the world’s most ageworthy wines.

The Wehlener Sonnenuhr and Graacher Himmelreich rise out from the Mosel River in direct view of the winery – majestic, dangerously steep slopes covered with shards of blue-grey Devonian slate. The vineyards are a familiar backdrop to anyone lucky enough to be invited into the estate’s parlour for a tasting (very few outsiders have stepped into the cellars or production areas of J. J. Prüm).

Joh. Jos. Prüm at a glance

Founded 1911 by Johann Josef Prüm following a division of the original S. A. Prüm estate

Co-owners and winemakers Dr. Manfred Prüm (third generation owner) and Dr. Katharina Prüm (fourth generation owner)

Location Village of Wehlen in the Mittelmosel (Middle Mosel)

Production 140,000 bottles

Grape variety Riesling

Area under vine 22ha

Key vineyards Wehlener Sonnenuhr, Graacher Himmelreich, Zeltinger Sonnenuhr, Bernkasteler Badstube

Soil Devonian shale

Of the two sites, Wehlener Sonnenuhr has a slightly more southern exposition and a higher concentration of pure, weathered Devonian slate. Graacher Himmelreich, which borders the southern edge of Wehlenher Sonnenuhr, is slightly less steep in gradient. It’s distinguished from Wehlener Sonnenuhr by pockets of blue slate and a deeper, water-retaining soil structure.

‘Standing in front of the two vineyards, it’s impossible to understand why they taste so different,’ says Katharina. But regardless of vintage or climate variations, distinctions between the two vineyards always shine through.

The wines of Wehlener Sonnenuhr tend towards richness, structure and complexity. ‘Wehlener Sonnenuhr offers more intensity, more stone fruits like white peach,’ says Katharina. Graacher Himmelreich tends towards clarity and focus. ‘The wines are a bit more racy in style,’ she says. ‘They have slightly higher acidity’ and fruit flavours that are brisk and cutting – more green apple or ripe pink grapefruits,’ Katharina suggests.

Wines from Wehlener Sonnenuhr also tend to develop at a more relaxed pace. ‘Graacher Himmelreich jumps at you a bit more quickly,’ says Katharina. ‘It’s charming earlier whereas Wehlener Sonnenuhr starts more slowly. Once it gets going, however, it runs and runs forever. Wehlener Sonnenuhr is the marathon runner of the two.’

An ageless approach to winemaking

In the two decades since Katharina joined her father, much of the estate’s production remains unchanged.

Because phylloxera is deterred by slate soils, roughly 90% of the estate’s vines are ungrafted. Yields are low and weather and climate permitting, the winery harvests late, allowing grapes to ripen over an extended growing period, intensifying in aroma, complexity and expressiveness.

Workers harvest grapes with no mechanical assistance, clinging to ropes as they manoeuvre rocky cliffsides with buckets in hand – one for healthy grapes and one for botrytised grapes. The wines are fermented spontaneously and matured on their lees for extended periods in stainless steel.

Tasted young, they can be nervous and tightly wound with a distinctly reductive sponti (short for spontaneous fermentation) stink. Katharina calls it a ‘wildness’ – a smoky, pungent odour reminiscent of struck matches and slate. It’s a signature of the J. J. Prüm style, a veil of youth that fades with bottle maturation to reveal thrilling complexity and freshness. To the Prüms, it’s an accepted part of an intentionally long evolutionary process.

A goldkapsel or gold capsule, with a single white stripe on the neck of a J. J. Prüm bottle, represents some of the estate’s best auslese bottlings, typically richer, more concentrated wines boosted with botrytised grapes. An auslese with a lange goldkapsel, or long gold capsule, has two white stripes at the bottom to indicate a much higher percentage of botrytis, closer in style to a beerenauslese. Beerenauslese, trockenbeerenauslese and eiswein are always adorned with the lange goldkapsel.

While approachable young, even a basic kabinett from J. J. Prüm can benefit from three to five years of cellar time. Spätlase and auslese may not approach their peak for 20-30 years, and a well-kept beerenauslese or eiswein can be shockingly vibrant for decades longer. Whether young or mature, decanting the wines is often recommended.

Embracing tradition, but always seeking improvement

A large part of J. J. Prüm’s allure is its timelessness. Regardless of vintage variations, their wines are remarkably faithful to a benchmark form that’s immune to fads.

Katharina, however, is emphatic that she’s neither immune to nor resistant to change. ‘For me, tradition means only to keep things that make sense,’ she says. ‘In producing great wines, you constantly have to ask what you can do better, and that was a continual process that my father carried out too.’

Change in climate, for example, has driven an increasing number of adaptations for the winery. Consistently warmer growing seasons prompt grapes to ripen much faster than in the past, shortening the long ripening periods the estate is known for. When Katharina started at the estate, harvest never began before October, she says. Today, the winery often harvests by mid-September.

‘Weather patterns today are much less predictable too,’ she says. Amid extremely dry vintages like 2022, the winery undertakes more green harvesting than ever before, cutting away higher percentages of grape clusters to help drought-afflicted vines restore their balance. It’s a difficult adaptation, Katharina suggests, that further compounds yields that have shifted lower and lower in contemporary vintages.

Subtle shifts in wine style over the last two decades also reflect Katharina’s philosophy when it comes to Prädikatsweine: that each level of ripeness must have a clear and distinct identity.

Today, J. J. Prüm’s kabinetts are most often just a shade off-dry – not legally dry, but much drier than you’ll find with most Mosel estates. Its spätlese is a bit more fruity but never sweet on the finish. And for Katharina, even an auslese is a food wine, she says: ‘Sweetness should never be the main impression for these wines.’ Her oft-repeated message is that at J. J. Prüm, kabinett, spätlese and auslese are all drier than they are sweet in style.

In educating consumers, Katharina steers clear of measurements of residual sugar. In fact, the winery does not publicise any of its analytical data. ‘The key is to find the right balance of sweetness and acidity in the context of every vintage,’ she says, ‘and that’s something we define by tasting, not just analytical data.’

Forever sweet, or rather, not dry

Katharina’s career at the winery began amid a growing shift in German consumer preferences towards dry wines – a Trockenwelle, or dry wave – that catapulted the weight of German wine production from sweet to dry.

It’s a shift that’s also been championed by the Verband Deutscher Prädikatsweingüter (VDP), the powerful association of Germany’s most prominent estates as they focus efforts on the exclusively dry, super-premium Grosses Gewächs, or GG bottlings.

Despite being a founding member of the VDP, J. J. Prüm produces virtually no dry wines. Its off-dry and sweet Prädikatsweine wear the VDP Grosse Lage designation, reflecting the grand cru status of the vineyards, but the winery produces no GGs.

If a dry wine is made, ‘it’s usually by coincidence – we’ll have a little tank that just fermented super-fast and if it wants to be dry, we just let it,’ says Katharina. The last time she remembers producing dry wine was in 2011, most likely bottled as a kabinett trocken or spätlese trocken.

It’s not that Katharina doesn’t believe the Mosel can produce exceptional dry wines. In fact, she thinks the Mosel’s ability to produce dry wines has only improved as the climate gets warmer. But so many regions in Germany and even more around the world produce fantastic dry wines, she explains.

‘Here in the Mosel, we produce something so rare and unique, something only a few people can produce in the world,’ Katharina says; ‘that’s what our focus is.’

See notes and scores for 10 exquisite Joh. Jos. Prüm Rieslings

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Blink and you could miss it. The village of Graach, or Graach an der Mosel, was first mentioned in historical texts in 975. Home to just over 600 inhabitants, it is a tiny town lying alongside the B53 road as it traces the meanders of the Mittelmosel while you’re making your way north from picturesque Bernkastel town towards the charming hamlet of Zeltingen.

That such a small place could be home to some of the world’s greatest wines and, in fact, one of the finest producers of Riesling on the planet, might be a little surprising. However, if you know anything about these steep Devonian slate slopes and the reputation of Weingut Willi Schaefer, you’ll understand that Graach indeed sits on hallowed ground.

Scroll down to see notes and scores for a selection of Willi Schaefer Rieslings

Christoph Schaefer, along with his wife Andrea, has been at the helm of Willi Schaefer since 2015, taking over from his father Willi. Christoph’s grandparents, Martha and Willibrord Schaefer, founded the winery in its current state after World War II. The family’s viticultural roots, however, go back nearly as far as the town of Graach itself.

There is mention in a document referring to a vineyard changing hands from 1121 of one of the Schaefer family ancestors. Local and historical documents from the region around Graach show evidence of the Schaefer family’s involvement in vineyard work as early as 1590.

When I ask Christoph how long his family has owned and tended their vineyards above the village of Graach, he chuckles. ‘Actually, more or less always,’ he says with a wry smile. And he means it literally.

Those centuries-old beginnings laid the foundation for Christoph’s father Willi, who would take the wines and the global reputation of Weingut Willi Schaefer to the pinnacle of Riesling producers, staking the label’s renown on its kabinett, spätlese and auslese wines – bottled poetry from the steep slate slopes of the Mosel.

A style is born

Willibrord Schaefer (Christoph’s grandfather) had been producing bone-dry Riesling for years when he stumbled onto the style that would become the calling card for his eponymous brand.

Europe experienced a series of extremely cold winters throughout the 1940s. Fermentations of the 1943 vintage Rieslings were not complete, owing to the very cold weather, leaving Schaefer with a cellar full of wines boasting a delicate sweetness. This style became his focus, with the aim being to find a balance between the bright and lively acidity of this region’s terroir and the graceful sweetness of the Riesling planted here when the fruit attains perfect ripeness.

Schaefer’s great growths

The holdings for Weingut Willi Schaefer are tiny. With just 4.5ha, the family is not nearly able to meet the unceasing demands of a world of Riesling lovers enchanted with its wines. Though it does make an effort: Schaefer bottles are available in about 30 countries, in cities from London to Seoul. The Schaefer vines are spread over a number of parcels in three of Mosel’s designated Grosse Lagen – Germany’s equivalent of grand cru vineyard land. ‘Since we’re from Graach, we’re really focused on the vineyards here, mainly the Domprobst and Himmelreich crus,’ says Christoph. ‘So, we’re talking about nearly 4.5ha, but it’s over 40 different parcels.

‘We like to have so many different characteristics over those many sites. We choose to keep those different site expressions in different bottlings of Riesling we’ll produce, which will vary vintage to vintage,’ Christoph explains. ‘In 2022, we made only six “regular” Rieslings, but we can make as many as 16 if the vintage calls for it.’

Schaefer’s Grosse Lagen

Graacher Domprobst

Soil: Devonian blue slate

Slope: 45%-75%

Elevation: 110m-260m

The rich clay soils that underlie the weathered Devonian slate supply this finest of the Graacher crus with more groundwater and tend to create wines of greater power and intensity. The Domprobst wines have tremendous ageability and a distinctive minerality.

Graacher Himmelreich

Soil: Devonian blue slate

Slope: 45%-75%

Elevation: 110m-325m

Based on the soil composition over millions of years of alluvial deposits, the Graach slope has a richer soil bed with greater water retention, which tends to produce wines with more concentration and complexity.

Wehlener Sonnenuhr

Soil: Devonian blue slate

Slope: 65%-70%

Elevation: 110m-320m

Located in the village of Wehlen, the vineyard is named for a sundial built in the 1840s by Joducus Prüm. The site is known for producing wines of freshness, bright fruit and minerality.

Graacher Himmelreich is one of the two Grosse Lage sites associated with the village of Graach. Himmelreich means literally ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ and was so named because much of the vineyard land was owned back in the Middle Ages by the Catholic church. Weingut Willi Schaefer has 2ha of vines within this larger Grosse Lage cru.

Half of the estate holdings are located within the Graacher Domprobst Grosse Lage, where the most sought-after Schaefer wines are produced. Domprobst sits in the centre of the Himmelreich cru. Imagine a sort of bullseye. The term Domprobst means ‘Dean of the Cathedral’ (of Trier) – since it was of higher quality, 10% of the fruit from this most prestigious of sites went to the local religious leader.

Wehlener Sonnenuhr is located just downstream from the village of Graach on the Mosel river (in the direction of Zeltingen). The Willi Schaefer estate holdings in Wehlener Sonnenuhr are only 0.25ha.

Elegance & tradition

While a world of wine drinkers has fallen in love with the pinpoint acidities of the fashionable Grosses Gewächs [dry Rieslings from vineyard sites rated as top-quality by Germany’s VDP organisation], the Schaefers continue doing what they always have; making some of the Mosel’s best classic Rieslings. The tradition that Christoph carries on in the cellar is founded on one defining principle: ‘a pursuit of elegance’ is how he puts it.

This has become a challenge in a warming climate. The picking windows have become smaller and the margin for error has increased. ‘In the 1970s, just like the old days, it was simply a matter of waiting for the grapes to ripen. Now you must be ready to go, because if you are even just a few days behind, the grapes won’t give us the wines we intend to make.’

That approach is also a commitment to low-tech winemaking. In the face of global technological advances, the ethic at Weingut Willi Schaefer remains the same as it was in the days of Christoph’s grandfather and of those before him. ‘We don’t measure any data,’ Christoph tells me. ‘We just taste the grapes. You have to trust your tongue. I gauge the ripeness and aromatics through tasting in the vineyard. I taste the grapes again during the pressing and again at fermentation. When the wines taste as though they’re ready, and I like where they are, then I stop the fermentation.’

So the house style at Willi Schaefer is to do as close to nothing to the wine as they possibly can. Every barrel is stopped, Christoph says, ‘when the feeling is that we have a perfect balance of all the components’. And: ‘It’s the purity that allows us to see the terroir with clarity in these wines’. The wines are then racked into stainless steel tanks until bottling, with just a slight filtration beforehand.

‘In general we don’t use many techniques,’ says Christoph. ‘We focus on harvest strategy and we follow that closely. If we make the right selections and decisions in the vineyard, then we don’t have to worry about what happens in the cellar.’

Let the terroir talk

The Schaefer approach is refreshing in its simplicity. The cellar sits below Christoph and Andrea’s family home, built by his grandfather in the 1950s. They use only the gentlest pressing of the grapes and all fermentations are spontaneous and very slow. The wines ferment in old, 1,000-litre German fuders, some of them dating back to the 1950s.

They are driven by an obsessive respect for the terroir that has supported this family for centuries. They take what the vintage gives them. ‘If we don’t have the grapes for a particular wine, we simply don’t make that wine in a given vintage,’ Christoph tells me.

Their commitment has won them a cult-like following among Riesling devotees, driven by their purity of approach and strong commitment to tradition, one that feels so fleeting in our rapidly changing world.

Willi Schaefer: Top-flight Rieslings in high demand

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Almost 100 people were seated in a spacious hall and there was a great deal of silence. This is what one normally knows from opera and theatre, but for the past 20 years also from the annual tasting of the Verband Deutscher Prädikatsweingüter (VDP) in the Kurhaus Kolonnaden, in front of the casino in the city of Wiesbaden.

From morning to night, hardly anything can be heard. At most, a slight gurgling and discreet spitting, which is quite socially acceptable at wine tastings, and the quiet footsteps of around 50 service staff.

Scroll down for notes and scores for 30 latest release Grosse Gewächs

Their performance is indeed somewhat reminiscent of a ballet; in a flowing rhythm, they carry in crates of wine bottles, spreading silently across the rows and pouring for the experts. Each of these crates contains a ‘flight’ of up to six wines, the bottles arranged according to grape variety and origin. There are 83 flights to taste during the three days in Wiesbaden, 460 wines in total.

The annual gathering

These are exclusively Grosse Gewächs (GG) or ‘grand cru’ wines, meaning the top dry wines produced by the VDP, the Association of German Prädikat Wine Estates members.

These 201-strong members of VDP represent some of Germany’s top wineries, and they have agreed to follow strict quality criteria for their GGs, such as reduced yields and manual harvesting for grapes from only the best vineyards, which are classified as Grosse Lagen.

The white wines may only be brought to the market in and after September of the year following the harvest, and the reds two years later. Many things can be regulated in the statutes of the VDP, but vintage conditions cannot.

Backs against the wall for 2021 reds

Most of the red wines presented come from 2021, a cool and wet vintage hard to forget so quickly. The vintners in the Ahr valley remember the worst of it: on 14 July 2021, the otherwise harmless Ahr river turned into a raging torrent. Entire wineries were swept away, and the vineyards in the valley and on the valley edge were destroyed.

Vineyards which were not affected on the steep slopes above were subsequently attacked by downy mildew, a fungal disease. Therefore, those local winegrowers who have made the best out of the natural circumstances deserve more respect and recognition.

The best winemakers have adapted to dealing with changeable nature. Andi Rings from Freinsheim in the Palatinate, for example, reveals his paper clip trick: he and his team used an unbent paper clip when working in the vineyard to pick out individual berries from whole bunches that were affected by downy mildew. The entire harvest was pre-sorted again by 15 people, late into the night, on a new, illuminated table.

The vineyards of Julian Huber from the Bernhard Huber winery in Malterdingen also suffered in 2021: frost in the spring, then extreme pressure from downy mildew and finally the arrival of vinegar flies. Biological treatments were only marginally effective, as a result, a good 70% of the grapes were lost.

For the first time since its debut 2004 vintage, Huber did not produce his top wine, the Wildenstein, which is the oldest Spätburgunder (aka Pinot Noir) parcel within the Bienenberg site. Grapes harvested from the Wildenstein plot in 2021 were used for the Bienenberg cuvée.

Huber was also extremely careful in the cellar: ‘The grape skins were harder than usual, the tannins more compact,’ he recalls. He did not put whole clusters (with stems) into fermentation this time, and only gently punched down the skins in the must towards the end of fermentation, so as not to leach out too much of it, and then pressed the wine early. The hard work paid off, as his 2021 Pinot Noir from the Bienenberg proves.

2022 whites seek shade

The difficult 2021 vintage was followed by 2022, quite different and yet just as difficult. It was dry and very warm, on some days extremely hot. Klaus-Peter Keller and his son Felix have been relying on shading in Rheinhessen for a long time, and will be even more so in the future. They plant up to 20,000 vines per hectare for their white and red varieties – the usual number is 4,000 to 5,000, in order to fit a tractor within the wide rows.

At 20,000, pure manual labour is the order of the day, which makes the work – and later the wine – more expensive. But for that, the roots have no choice but to sprout deep down due to lack of space and nutrition. ‘That gives more skin, but less juice; it really packs a punch,’ said Klaus-Peter.

In addition, the vines’ tall foliage walls provide shade and, in less densely stocked plants, Keller no longer cuts the tips of the shoots but just wraps them around the wires – not only does this technique provide more shade, it can lead to a looser bunch structure with smaller, more concentrated berries that stay healthy longer; certainly, Keller Rieslings from Morstein and Abtserde are top class.

The couple Hans-Oliver Spanier from the Battenfeld Spanier winery and Carolin Kühling-Gillot from Rheinhessen also look back on the warm year of 2022 with satisfaction.

They had 8,000 bales of straw spread in the vineyards to protect the soil from the burning sun. ‘Under the straw, it was 30 degrees cooler,’ said Spanier. His 2022 Riesling from the Zellerweg at Schwarzer Herrgott is one of the vintage’s best.

The difference between 2022 and the equally warm years of 2018, 2019 and 2020 were the nights, said Tim Fröhlich of the Schäfer-Fröhlich winery in Nahe: they were cool, so the acidity remained in the grapes. And then there was also luck: ‘We had a light thundershower at the right time, which was a blessing,’ he says. With rainwater as fuel, the grapes gained another 10 to 15 Oechsle degrees of sugar by the time of harvest.

Michael Gutzler in Rheinhessen also seems to have benefited from this. His 2022 Riesling from the Liebfrauenstift Kirchenstück site convinces with its beautiful balance and above all with its price; compared to its peers, the wine is a real bargain.

And what are the prospects for 2023? A happy ending is still a long time coming, but Klaus-Peter Keller sends a message from the vineyard: ‘First very dry and warm, then damp and cool in August, and now beautiful again.’ That gives us hope.

See notes and scores for 30 latest release Grosse Gewächs

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Following two days of blind tasting in Colmar earlier this year, 13 wines scored 95 points or more and 40 wines scored 92-94 points, with both the 2021 and 2020 vintages faring well.

Tasting notes for the top 60 wines from both vintages focus on Grand Cru Riesling, as well as Grand Cru Muscat, Pinot Gris and Gewurztraminer.

Scroll down to see the top 30 Alsace Grand Cru wines from 2020 and 2021

51 grands crus

Across the 15,500ha of total vineyard area in Alsace, there are 51 designated grands crus, yet very few of these are well-known to consumers. Though most consumers do not understand Burgundy or Bordeaux classifications in great detail, these two regions have a longer historical record and formidable brand identities. Alsace on the other hand did not introduce its modern classification until 1975, which doubled in size 1983 with its first 25 grand cru classifications.

Though not covered in this report, over 25% of all Alsace wine produced is traditional method sparkling, known as Crémant. Some of it amounts to mediocre mass-market fizz, but some talented producers are making superb bubbles that can rival Champagne. Some excellent examples to try include Mélanie Pfister’s Breit Extra Brut, Albert Mann’s Extra Brut and Domaine Muré’s Grand Millésime.

See all the Alsace vintage report tasting notes and scores here

2021: a classic vintage

2021 was a ‘difficult vintage,’ says Gilles Haeffelin, sommelier at Au Bon-Coin in Wintzenheim, with the lowest yields since the 1950s because of excessive rain and corresponding rot risk. Despite these difficulties, of 89 Rieslings tasted for this report many 2021s exuded exciting wet stone and citrus fruit characters and tangy acidity.

Lovers of freshness and elegance will likely prefer the 2021 vintage for more noticeable acidity and verve. Philippe Blanck of Domaine Paul Blanck in Kaysersberg says: ‘I will remember 2021 for its acidity and dry extract, an atypical vintage in the context of global warming, but also for its fine texture.’

Jérôme Mader of Domaine Jean-Luc Mader in Hunawihr says: ‘2021 is a classic vintage that we may not ever again make, as climate change takes us in a different direction. It reminds us of Alsace wines made 20 years ago.’

2020: a solar vintage

Mélanie Pfister, of her eponymous domaine in Dahlenheim, northern Alsace, says that 2020 proved to be a more typical, global warming era style, with higher alcohol levels than in 2021: ‘2020 is ripe, full-bodied, deep and with plenty of dry extract,’ she says.

Mader agrees: ‘2020 is more powerful and muscular, but it sometimes lacks the elegance and balance of 2021,’ which he finds ‘very aristocratic in its manifestation of wet stone minerality.’

Cooler soils like clay were better suited to 2020, while warmer granite soils suited 2021 better, says Guillaume Mochel of Domaine Frédéric Mochel in Traenheim.

Mader stresses that grand cru wines are generally from sunnier terroirs where the grapes are meant to ‘ripen perfectly,’ so in solar years like 2020, Pinot Gris and Gewurztraminer from grands crus can be ‘very powerful’ wines, ‘where the richness can sometimes be excessive.’ By contrast, ‘these excesses are not found in the 2021 vintage, where the balance is more harmonious and finer,’ he says.

A question of style

Olivier Humbrecht MW of Domaine Zind-Humbrecht finds entry-level wines (not including grands crus or specified lieux-dits) ‘more successful’ in 2021. While agreeing with the solar versus classic description, he stresses that grand cru terroirs for Riesling performed equally well while reflecting stylistic differences. For Pinot Gris and dry Gewurztraminer, he prefers the verve of the 2021 vintage, while favouring 2020 for sweeter, late-harvest Gewurztraminer.

Humbrecht cautions against making too strong a contrast between the two vintages. While 2021 had heavy rains between April and July, a very dry period in August through to the end of the harvest meant that poorly worked plots ‘actually showed signs of water stress,’ he says. And while 2020 was indeed much warmer, he explains that two big rains in August – 80mm at the beginning, 40mm in mid-August – helped retain freshness, so that the grands crus experienced ‘no water stress in 2020.’

Although 2021 was difficult for yields, it proved ‘in fact much simpler’ to vinify than 2020, Humbrecht says. ‘Thanks to spring rains, the grapes and musts were loaded with assimilable nitrogen [important for successful fermentations], which allowed the wines to all ferment very easily until they were dry – some took a while, but went the whole way without problems,’ he explains. ‘As a result, the 2021s are quite reductive, but we have not changed the ageing – still 18 months on total lees because we thought that racking the wines earlier would have been harmful.’

Fermentations in 2020 on the other hand were ‘languorous,’ and ‘not just because potential alcohols were 0.5% higher than 2021,’ explains Humbrecht.

Which grands crus fared the best?

The grands crus with the highest-scoring wines were:

Hengst

Kaefferkopf

Kastelberg

Rangen de Thann

Rosacker

Schlossberg

Sommerberg

Zinnkoepflé

Contrasting styles, excellent quality

Tasting both vintages, I experienced more verve and liveliness from the 2021 vintage on a general level. But many 2020s are excellent, with enough acidity and vivacity to balance warmer, riper fruit.

The blind tasting once again proves that Alsace produces exciting white wines, but often the region does not get the attention it deserves. High-scoring producers from this tasting – such as Domanine Weinbach or Domaine Zind-Humbrecht – sell well internationally, but the tasting has also brought lesser-known producers to the fore. From sensational dry Rieslings to nuanced and spicy Gewurztraminers, by way of bold Pinot Gris and refreshing Muscats, most are also inexpensive.

Alsace’s consumer challenges

Alsace still faces a number of consumer challenges. Does Alsace Pinot Gris resemble Italian Pinot Grigio? How are grape varieties like Gewurztraminer, or grands crus like Schlossberg or Altenberg de Bergbieten, pronounced? Will the wine be sweet because it’s in a long, fluted bottle?

While sales of Alsatian wines are solid – the US and the UK are among the top 10 countries for Alsace wines sold by volume and value, according to recent CIVA statistics – they could improve.

‘Even in 2023, there is a question of which grand cru is easier to pronounce for foreign markets,’ says Foulques Aulagnon, export marketing manager at the CIVA (Conseil Interprofessionnel des Vins d’Alsace).

As it turns out, Alsace Pinot Gris is ‘absolutely nothing like Italian Pinot Grigio, and buyers still are confounded by the residual sugar levels in Alsatian wine, often too sweet for palates accustomed to dry whites,’ says Washington DC based sommelier Maria Denton.

Despite a recent change in regulations stating that all non-late harvest Alsace Riesling must be dry, as well as an introduction of a dryness scale on the back label, making this information even clearer on the label could help.

Tasting notes and scores for the top 30 Alsace Grand Cru wines from 2020 and 2021:

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‘As a farmer, especially as a Finger Lakes grape grower, you have to be unendingly optimistic. This year is no different in that respect,’ said vineyard manager Tim Hosmer of Hosmer Winery.

Difficult years like 2023 are nothing new to Hosmer, who oversees 28ha for his family’s Cayuga Lake property. Hosmer Winery, which sustained minimal damage in the May frost, has been farmed sustainably since the 1930s.

As the season ploughs on and new challenges surface, Hosmer’s ‘unending optimism’ is echoed by producers across the state.

Predictably unpredictable

Cornell Cooperative Extension senior viticulture extension associate Hans Walter-Peterson believes that extensive media coverage of the May frost did New York no favours with consumers. He is clear that even the state’s hardest-hit regions, like the Finger Lakes and Hudson Valley, will still make delicious wine in 2023.

‘We’ve been through hard years before and came out in good shape,’ he said.

Lower yields are expected in some locations where damage was most extreme, but overall, the industry is feeling positive about the 2023 vintage.

A celebrated hallmark of New York wines is vintage variation. And rightfully so, with each growing season varying from the last. ‘The jet stream breaking down means weather patterns tend to get stuck here,’ Alex Alvarez-Perez of Usonia Wine explained.

In the six years they’ve been making Finger Lakes wine, inconsistency is the only constant. ‘It’s either a drought (’20, ’22) or extremely wet (’21). Or you get months-long drought conditions followed by high rainfall and disease pressure like both 2018 and 2023,’ Alvarez-Perez continued.

Matthew Spaccarelli agrees. ‘Unpredictability seems to be the norm now,’ said the Hudson Valley wine-grower and maker for Fjord Vineyards and Benmarl Winery. Benmarl holds Farm Winery License no. 01 in the state and Spaccarelli has been farming the historical land since 2006. He noted that ‘winter lows, early bud break, late frost, spring droughts, summer rains [or droughts] and hurricanes’ are just the beginning.

This summer’s higher-than-average rainfall has kept growers busy in a season ripe for mould and mildew. The rains have also contributed to vigorous vine growth – perhaps a good problem to have, especially after a devastating weather event.

A promising vintage

Though Long Island avoided a late frost due to its warmer maritime climate, the region also battled heavy precipitation. At Lenz Winery, Sam McCullough’s first line of defence is crop management. ‘We strive to retain fruit that is well positioned to receive adequate light for flavour development and is also well-positioned to allow for adequate air circulation to aid in fungal disease prevention,’ he said. He highlighted that thinning is not about quantity, but quality.

‘This season looks promising at this point as veraison has proceeded rapidly and evenly,’ he added. ‘As long as the weather cooperates, meaning mainly warm, sunny and dry, we should see an excellent red vintage.’

Many echo hopes of a ‘cooperative’ September across the state. The month is known to make or break a vintage. Given the volume of rainfall to date, a warm and dry autumn seems crucial.

Veraison brings relief to Colleen Hardy, co-owner of Living Roots Wine & Co. on Keuka Lake. ‘The fruitfulness of the secondary buds has been pleasantly surprising,’ said Hardy of the additional growth seen in the Keuka Lake estate vineyards since May. She estimates just 20-30% loss by the end of the season, compared to an initial estimate of 60-80% of primary buds after the frost.

Hardy said the varying stages of ripeness from primary to secondary bud was a welcomed challenge. ‘We’re optimistic about quality with lower yields and good vine health,’ she noted. Like others across the state, Living Roots will employ multiple passes in the vineyard, leaving some clusters behind to ripen through October or November if the season allows. The team expects to begin picking hybrids for sparkling in early September.

Optimism over everything

This year also marks the inaugural vintage of wines made from grapes certified by the New York Sustainable Winegrowing programme. ‘Just because a year is more challenging doesn’t mean we toss out everything we know about good, sound, environmentally-friendly viticulture,’ said Walter-Peterson.

A total of 49 vineyards achieved certification status, and will offer wines bearing the Trustmark as soon as next summer. Walter-Peterson urges consumers to show their support of New York wine monetarily: ‘This is a time when consumers can really step up and help out wineries. Buying directly from them maximises their revenue.’

Though grapes are just starting to come in, Walter-Peterson already has his eye on 2024: ‘We’ll bounce back. Next year is always another chance to have a great year.’

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Caro Maurer MW, Mark Dearing and Stefan Neumann tasted 74 wines with 8 Outstanding and 31 Highly recommended.

German dry Riesling: Panel tasting scores

74 wines tasted

Exceptional 0

Outstanding 8

Highly recommended 31

Recommended 26

Commended 8

Fair 1

Poor 0

Entry criteria: producer-members of the VDP organisation and UK agents were invited to submit their latest-release, dry Grosses Gewächs Riesling wines from any German region.

Riesling acts as a kind of medium: a mediator between origin and grape variety. In the best examples, the delicate Riesling aromas bear witness to the terroir within which each wine is produced – and also to the vintage, as was shown in this panel tasting, which featured a constellation of Grosses Gewächs (‘GG’) Riesling wines of varying styles.

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores from the German dry Riesling panel tasting

The GGs are the German equivalents of ‘grand cru’ wines – exclusively dry wines [including grape varieties other than Riesling, though the majority are Rieslings] from the most-highly classified sites of the members of the Verband Deutscher Prädikatsweingüter (VDP) – an independent organisation of some 200 of Germany’s very best wineries united under a single banner.With respect to the vintages, 2018 was very warm, 2019 and 2020 were warm and dry, while 2021 was cool and damp. The differences were apparent in these single-site Rieslings, as the leading winemakers were able to bring out the determining factors of vintage with precision and finesse, while others seemed to cope less well with the natural circumstances.

Accordingly, the quality of these GG samples also ranges from just-acceptable to top-class with high ageing potential. In the best Rieslings, 2021 expresses itself with pronounced acidity, ravishing freshness and unleashed vivacity, while the authoritative wines from 2020 and 2019 focus more on accessibility, high concentration and density. 2018 already shows harmony and integration of all components that one can expect from a five-year-old Riesling.

The majority of the samples were from the 2021 vintage, the best among them excelling with fascinating tension, but also hearty accessibility, as agreed by all three tasters. Decisive advantages included, for Mark Dearing, the mineral profile, while for Stefan Neumann MS it was their potential for ageing. Some 2021 wines, said Dearing, may seem a bit shy at the beginning, and these need time to open up, but for him these are the long-runners. Neumann was particularly impressed by the 2021 wines from Rheinhessen and the Nahe: ‘It was a pleasure to experience them in the glass now: so lively, so fresh, so elegant. Everything already seemed in the right place. The only thing that is still missing, unfortunately, no one can buy: that is time.’ Indeed, the 2021s need the time to grow to their full potential.

There was unanimity among the judges in saying that Rheinhessen and Nahe stood out as the strongest regions in the tasting overall, while the weakest wines came from Baden-Württemberg, with samples being rather ‘simple’ and thus less exciting, according to Dearing. Neumann was also disappointed that the Rheingau, otherwise a dominant Riesling stronghold, did poorly with the 2021 vintage here. In Baden, the Pinot varieties, rather than Riesling, are the top stars, said Neumann: ‘If you want to drink Riesling in the south, it’s best to cross the Rhine towards Alsace.’

See all the German dry Riesling wines from the panel tasting

The tasters were untroubled by the fact that wine styles varied from very classic to modern reductive. As Dearing put it: ‘This is the strength of Riesling, that it is not the style of the winemaker that shapes it, but its origin.’ And that is exactly what the wines that achieved 95 points or above show. They come from different regions, and from different soils – what they have in common is their vitality and energy. Neumann agreed: ‘Why do we love Riesling so much? Every wine tells a different story, namely that of its homeland.’

German dry Riesling panel tasting scores

The judges

Caro Maurer MW is a German wine writer and WSET- and MW-level educator. A DWWA Regional Chair, she also contributes to Bonn’s daily newspaper General-Anzeiger and food and wine magazine Der Feinschmecker.

Mark Dearing is a wine buyer for London-based merchant and importer Justerini & Brooks, where his responsibilities include Germany as well as several other major wine nations and regions.

Stefann Neumann is an independent Master Sommelier who runs his own wine consultancy. A DWWA Regional Chair, he has many years of experience working in the world of Michelin-starred restaurants, and in 2023 launched an online blind tasting course to help students pass their wine exams.

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Forge Cellars is committed to exploring the unique terroir of the southeastern side of Seneca Lake. This section, known as ‘The Banana Belt,’ ripens fruit well due to west-facing slopes that maximise the heat of the late afternoon sun. The winery sources grapes from 13 sites and produces a unique single-vineyard dry Riesling from each.

Scroll down to see 10 Forge Cellars wines to try

All Rieslings ferment in casks until bone dry, yet none are acerbic or challenging to appreciate, even in their youth. From this collection of sites, Forge also crafts in some vintages two single vineyard Pinot Noirs, three Cabernet Francs, and a Chardonnay, as well as the ‘Classique’ range of blended dry Riesling and Pinot Noir that provide an entry point to the range.

 Rhône roots

Forge Cellars is the brainchild of Louis Barruol and Rick Rainey. Barruol represents the 15^th generation of his family to own the Château de Saint-Cosme in Gigondas. Passionate and articulate, he is responsible for the winemaking, while Florida-born Rainey is responsible for sourcing the fruit and overseeing the grape growing.

The Rhône is very different from the Finger Lakes, but Barruol says, ‘Although we don’t do the same things in each place, we are still the same vignerons.’ He had always wanted to create a new winery from scratch, and Rainey, who worked for the Saint-Cosme importer, introduced him to the terroir of the Finger Lakes.

‘It is Seneca Lake that we truly believe in,’ he explains: ‘it is the deepest of the Finger Lakes and holds the heat, buffering the cool dominant winds from the northwest before they reach us.’

‘After that, it is necessary to learn the code of the terroir. We use French methods in our search for minerality and expression of terroir. America’s ‘great white wine’ will not be a 14.5% Chardonnay but a Riesling at 12%.’

A selection of Seneca vineyards

Vineyard: Willow Vineyard

Farmed by: John Wagner

Planted: 2014 

Elevation: 220m

Key vineyard details: Willow is the furthest north of the sites from which Forge sources on the east side of Seneca Lake. It is located in the village of Lodi. Aurora and Farmington silt loam on shale with a west-facing aspect. Because of the sand and the light reflecting off the water, this is among the earliest vineyards to ripen.

Key wines: Riesling and Cabernet Franc are planted in sandy soils at 220m.

Vineyard: Railroad Vineyard

Farmed by: John Wagner

Planted: 1995

Elevation: 250m

Key vineyard details: Located near the village of Lodi, perfectly preserved railroad ties from a clearly defined route for the historic Lehigh Valley Railroad from the early 1900s bisect the vineyard. Honeoye and Lima silt loam on shale.

Key wines: Riesling is planted here in heavier gravelly loam soils that impart more richness and fruit.

Vineyard: Wagner Caywood East

Farmed by: John Wagner

Planted: 2005 & 2006

Elevation: 300m

Key vineyard details: Located near the village of Caywood. At the top of the slope at an average elevation of 300m, it is a 5.6hasite on a drastic slope in soils of almost pure shale. (Lansing and Conesus gravelly silt loam on shale.)The vineyards have been converted to vertical shoot positioning and are very low-yielding: the average is 35 hl/ha, while some growers can harvest three times that amount.

Key wines: Riesling with electric character

Vineyard: Caywood Vineyard

Farmed by: Matt Doyle

Planted: 1972 & 1973

Elevation: 215m

Key vineyard details: Near the village of Caywood, on Honeoye silt loam on shale. Caywood is the most historical of the Seneca Lake sites planted by one of the region’s two most important figures, Charles Fournier, who pioneered Vitis vinifera in the Finger Lakes. The vineyard is relatively flat, and the topsoil is very thin, yielding concentrated wines.

Key wines: Riesling and Chardonnay with old vine character.

Vineyard: Freese Vineyard

Farmed by: Mark Wagner

Planted: mid-1990s

Elevation: 235m

Key vineyard details: Near the village of Lodi, on Conesus and Lansing silt loam atop shale. Near Breakneck Creek, which has some moderating influence on the vines. Forge began working with this vineyard in 2015 and bottled it for the first time as a lieu-dit in the 2018 vintage. The Riesling planted here has a balance between salinity and ripe fruit.

Key wines: Riesling that is ‘prudent and precise, offering ripeness and restraint.’

Vineyard: Breakneck Creek

Farmed by: John Santos & Doug Hazlitt

Planted: 1992

Elevation: 238m

Key vineyard details: Near the village of Valois, Lansing and Conesus silt loam on shale. Breakneck Creek was so called owing to the steep slope down which it ran to Seneca Lake. The creek runs parallel to Lake Seneca, drawing cool air in to give a salty marine edge to the wines.

Key wines: Riesling

From vines to wines

Barruol explains that he has been certified organic at Saint-Cosme ‘since forever’, but this type of viticulture is difficult in the Finger Lakes, where one finds copious rain during the growing season and more heat than one might think. ‘Mildew loves that! We are developing alternative organic solutions, but you can’t go too far without knowing what works.’

The 6ha home vineyard, Bellows, is farmed using organic methods but not certified. The vineyards are tilled but only as needed for weed control (many neighbours are using herbicides), and the canopy is managed with enough leaf-pulling to ensure both ripeness and the airflow to reduce mildew.

Forge is part of a group of growers in the Finger Lakes along with Silver Thread, Hermann J. Weimer, Dr Konstantin Frank and others that follow sustainable practices, including regenerative agriculture, bio-intensive farming, biodynamics, and the VineBalance sustainability practice developed at nearby Cornell University.

The hand-picked grapes are pressed whole-cluster. However, the fruit sourced from machine-picked vineyards is pressed as whole berries. The press cycle is long and slow, done in old mechanical Vaslin presses. For the single vineyard ‘Lieux-Dits’ bottlings, the must is settled overnight and run into neutral large and small casks with some of the lees for a long slow fermentation.

Tank-fermented wines form the base of the ‘Classique’ range, supplemented by barrels from single vineyards. Although the grapes are fermented until bone dry, there is nothing harsh or biting in the Forge style – on the contrary, a delightfully soft, floral perfume permeates the Rieslings.

The reds ferment with a proportion of whole clusters that can vary from 10-40%, and the wines are gently extracted with a light punching down to ensure a silky tannic structure. All fermentations use the starter or ‘pied de cuve’ method with ambient yeasts.

Forging a future

Barruol and Rainey continue to grow the volume at Forge Cellars, which they hope will top out at 15,000 cases, ideally with a mix of 80% dry Riesling and 20% red wine. The wines are well-distributed abroad, and the team is on a mission to spread the message that the Finger Lakes can offer wines of minerality, freshness, and complexity.

Barruol believes that the Finger Lakes is the region of the future, where despite global warming, the vines give wines of 12° with lively acidity — ‘Difficult vintages are less and less frequent’. Now that the winery is turning out consistently delicious wines, it seems that Barroul’s dream of creating a stellar winery ex nihilio has finally come to pass.

Vintage notes

2022: The December of 2022 was warmer than the average, and the vines were not fully dormant when a cold snap in January sent temperatures as low as -25° C. Relatively few vines died completely, but this extreme cold reduced yield by up to 50% in some sites. From the onset of spring, however, many growers were reminded of the beautiful conditions of 2020, with abundant sun and arid conditions—the season was drier for longer than many could remember. The drought led to small grapes with thick skins, which easily withstood the rain that fell in September. In short, the quality of the 2022 vintage is superb, but the quantity of grapes is small.

2021: Dry and sunny weather kicked off the growing season in the Finger Lakes. After flowering, however, the region saw much more rainfall than average. This lead to fungal disease and difficult ripening. Although the rain let up in September, most growers picked in the rain, making this among the most challenging of recent vintages. At Forge, the vintage is compared to an oyster, with the best wines showing a compelling salty quality.

2020: The season began with cooler-than-normal temperatures in April and May, and some vines were damaged by frost in early May. After flowering, however, temperatures were warmer, and the weather was notably dry. Drought conditions helped the grapes to ripen to exceptional levels, and yet levels of acidity and alcohol were close to normal — overall, a very successful vintage

2019: Cooler weather early in the season led to a classic vintage for white wines in the 2019 vintage. The lower temperatures delivered crisp acidity. Yet July and September were very sunny, producing healthy grapes and good ripeness to the structured fruit — an excellent year for white wine.

2018: Warm, wet weather was the general rule for 2018, and the rain intensified throughout the season. While conditions during the early season were close to normal, the weather became increasingly warm and wet from the end of veraison, increasing the threat of botrytis. A challenging year with a small crop.

2017: Flowering was warm and wet, but July and August were drier and cooler than average. The sun returned in September and most of October to deliver a good-sized, ripe crop with crisp acidity levels and balance — a good year for both red and white.

2016: A warm and very dry vintage producing concentrated fruit. The yield was 10 – 20% lower than usual. The heat produced a moderate crop of healthy grapes with excellent ripeness and slightly lower-than-average acidity — a good year, particularly for red wines.

Forge Cellars an exploration of Seneca Lake terroir in 10 wines

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If ever there were a viticultural equivalent of a caterpillar turning into a butterfly, it must be Welschriesling. This white variety, widely grown throughout the many countries of its regional domain, Central and Eastern Europe – and now even in volume in China – was for decades billed generally as a grape that made neutral, easy-drinking wine; rather simple and sour, even outright plonky; so much so that it was frequently spritzed with soda water for hot summer day gulping.

Scroll down to see Darrel Joseph’s selection of Welschriesling wines to try

At best, it was vinified mainly as a sparkling wine – or a component of; otherwise as a dry, still wine for immediate consumption, rarely lasting more than a year in bottle.

Now, though, Welschriesling is rapidly becoming a wine producer’s darling.

Ambitious wine-growers and winemakers have been digging deep to discover its true potential, and discovering that this late-ripening variety with moderate-to-generous acidity optimally reflects the terroir in which it grows – and this through nearly the entire wine style gamut, from sparkling, dry and semi-sweet, to botrytised, natural (or minimal intervention) and orange. Furthermore, it’s not just for young quaffing, and can show superbly with lengthy ageing.

As a young wine, Welschriesling tends to display notes of apple, citrus, pear and almond. As it ages, it can reveal tropical tones such as mango and pineapple, and perhaps melon, honey and a herb and spice character (such as thyme or bay leaf accents). When honed from Central Europe’s limestone or volcanic soils, there can be beautiful salinity.

Perhaps this diversity sounds unsurprising for a grape that contains ‘riesling’ as part of its name (it is referred to as Riesling Italico in parts of Italy). However, Welshriesling’s parentage is not definitive and the variety bears no relation to the noble Riesling – the Rhine Riesling – grape. While Welschriesling is the commonly used reference name, some international wine professionals prefer to document the variety by its Croatian name, Graševina (pronounced ‘Grah-zheh-vee-nah’), due to its likely origin.

‘From a historical and genetic point of view, this grape variety originates from Croatia,’ says Dr José Vouillamoz, the renowned grape geneticist. ‘That’s why I recommend using its local name, Graševina.’

Ultimately, though, it comes down to the language of the country in which the grape is planted: Austria uses the German name, Welschriesling; in Hungary, it’s Olaszrizling; in Slovenia, look for Laški Rizling; and in Serbia it’s Grašac. And the list continues.

Croatia

Government agency figures for the past two years show about 4,400ha of Graševina in Croatia – the country’s most widely planted variety – and there are excellent examples vinified here, especially in the inland eastern region (on Hungary’s southern border) of Slavonia, around the windy Kutjevo wine hills. Here, ancient volcanic soils and the continental climate aid in producing wines that display ageability and botrytised beauty.

For example, Kutjevo’s wine guru, 83-year-old Ivan Enjingi, has been crafting outstanding ageable Graševinas since the 1950s. Just open one of his dry, spontaneously fermented (yes, he’s long advocated this) barrel-aged kasna berba (‘late-harvest’) wines from vintages such as 2015, 2002 and 1994 – all from organic vineyards planted up to 400m high – and they still show brilliant freshness, depth, mineral extract and firm alcohol, usually at 13% and above.

On the sweet side, the area’s warm, humid autumn conditions can coax lush, botrytised izborna berba (‘selected-harvest’) dessert wines, some with a sweet, tropical expression, such as those from another Kutjevo maestro, Vlado Krauthaker. Other notable local producers include Adžić, Galić and the Kutjevo winery.

Further east, in the Croatian Danube region, are Vina Belje, and Iločki Podrumi, with vineyards on the western slopes of the Fruška Gora mountain that give birth to fruit-forward and mineral-structured Welschrieslings.

Serbia

The river Danube forms much of the border between eastern Croatia and the northwest of Serbia, where the vast part of the Fruška Gora lies. This is within the prominent wine region of Srem – most commonly referred to as Fruška Gora – where 106 producers comprise an official association dedicated to the revival of Grašac.

The region has a rich viticultural history; the ancient Romans planted vines here, and there is a 220-year-old regional ampelographic herbarium collection that contains the first official documentation of Grašac, complete with a dried leaf. Local producers are creating dry, citrussy and fresh, steel-aged wines. Some are using oak barrel maturation to support a deeper, more mineral expression as the wines age.

‘With Grašac, time is a friend,’ says Aleksandar Vinčić of Vinarija Vinčić in Srem, northwest Serbia. ‘With every year in the bottle, the varietal signature becomes stronger; the oak influence goes down and the Grašac character goes up.’

Other talented Grašac producers include Vinarija Vinum, Quet, Sijački, Kiš, Erdevik and Oszkar Maurer.

Hungary

Wines of Hungary gives a figure of 3,800ha of Olaszrizling planted, and indeed Hungary is a hotbed of producers working with the variety, particularly in the areas north of lake Balaton in the country’s west. Here, the terroir includes extinct volcanoes with basalt and loess soils around the Badacsony district.

On Badacsony’s Szent György-hegy (translated as St-George Hill), Olaszrizling wines can exude fine salinity that counterbalances their fresh fruitiness and even the typical subtropical fruit and almond tones that can be found. ‘The Szent György-hegy wines tend to have a distinctively salty finish,’ says Robert Gilvesy, owner of a 2.5ha organic wine estate on the hill. ‘This contributes definition not only to the single-varietal wines, but also to Olaszrizling blends.’

Adds Attila Jásdi from the 18ha Jásdi estate in the nearby Balatonfüred-Csopak district: ‘Olaszrizling is extremely adaptable and reliable here. During the region’s extremely hot summer periods, the variety is able to maintain its acidity.’

Other northern Balaton producers include Pálffy, Figula, Szeremley, Szászi, Káli Kövek, Villa Tolnay and Homola.

Austria

Producers in the country which is home to some 3,000ha of Welschriesling vines use the grape to produce stunning botrytised sweet wines (Beerenauslese, Trockenbeerenauslese and Ruster Ausbruch), especially around the Neusiedlersee, or lake Neusiedl, region of Burgenland. It’s also used as a key component in some traditional-method sparkling wines throughout Austria.

More recently, though, a number of winemakers have begun vinifying premium dry wines from their top crus. For example, Armin Tement of the Tement winery in Austria’s Südsteiermark (South Styria) – a renowned Sauvignon Blanc territory – creates pure, spontaneously fermented, barrel-aged Welschriesling from his organic Ried Zieregg and Ried Ottenberg vineyards, planted up to 350m above sea level. ‘The berries are small and concentrated with thick skins,’ he says. ‘What you get is purely concentrated, raw Welschriesling that has refreshing, salty tannins.’

Also gaining plenty of traction in Austria are Welschriesling wines produced as natural, organic, spontaneously fermented, unfiltered and even biodynamic wines, with producers including Wachter-Wiesler, Feiler-Artinger, Uwe Schiefer, Artisan Wines and Daniel Jaunegg.

There’s an array of stunning natural and orange wines being produced to the north of Austria, too – in Slovakia, where the Ryzling Vlašský and, in the Czech Republic the Ryzlink Vlašský, are commonly referred to by the nickname ‘Vlašák’. Vino Magula in Slovakia’s Malokarpatská region is one of several wineries to watch.

China

Welschriesling’s reach even extends to the other side of the world – to China, where it is referred to as ‘gui ren xiang’ (贵人香, literally ‘the noble fragrance’). The grape took root in China as long ago as the 1890s, when Baron Maximilian von Babo, the Austro-Hungarian empire’s consul to China, convinced industrialist Zhang Bishi to plant the grape in Bishi’s newly built winery Changyu, in the Yantai wine region of Shandong. Today, industry figures reveal that, after Chardonnay, Welschriesling is China’s second most widely planted white grape variety with some 4,000ha of vineyards, and wines are made in dry, off-dry and sweet styles.

‘The off-dry style is especially popular with Chinese consumers, who enjoy its fresh, fruity nose and light, crisp mouthfeel,’ says Professor Li Demei, director of Enology Engineering at Beijing Agricultural College. ‘It’s easy to understand, and friendly for typical Chinese dishes, whether salty or spicy.’

Production of Welschriesling in China centres on several regions in addition to Yantai in Shandong, including Xinjiang (Puchang Vineyard estate), Shanxi, Hebei and, especially, Ningxia with its Helan Mountain sub-region (Xixia King winery and the Xige Estate).

No matter the style, no matter the name, Welschriesling (Graševina, Olaszrizling, Grašac) is only just beginning to reveal its palate-pleasing complexities, even though it has been right under our noses for centuries. And it’s about time. In fact, it is only going to be a matter of time before Welschriesling becomes more widely poured beyond the borders of Central and Eastern Europe and China.

Joseph’s pick of 10 to discover: Top Welschrieslings of Central Europe

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Only a handful of New Zealand producers dedicate themselves whole-heartedly to the niche sport that is Riesling, and Pegasus Bay is one of them.

Over the past 40 years, the Donaldson family has honed a style of Riesling that is both unusual and rich. Ed Donaldson was in London to present the latest new and library vintage releases.

Scroll down for eight current and library vintage releases of Pegasus Bay Riesling

It all started with Wine, the first book (published in 1966) written by long-time Decanter columnist Hugh Johnson. Ivan Donaldson, an eminent neurologist from Christchurch, New Zealand, received it from then girlfriend (and now wife) Chris ahead of a European sabbatical in the early 1970s.

Being based in the UK enabled them to travel to European wine regions which resulted in Ivan ‘falling in love with the cool-climate regions like Burgundy and Mosel’, said their son Ed.

Back in New Zealand, following the sabbatical, Ivan continued practising neurology but in 1976 planted a few rows of vines in their Christchurch suburb, teaching himself how to make wine from books.

It would take another decade before he prospected for suitable land to plant vines on a commercial scale – which he did in 1986 alongside his and Chris’ four sons, then aged between eight and 14.

Today, eldest son Mat is Pegasus Bay’s winemaker, Paul is general manager, Mike is sales manager and Ed is marketing manager. Ivan and Chris are also still fully involved and Ed’s wife, Belinda, has joined as events manager.

Since those vines were planted 37 years ago, with the inaugural release of Pegasus Bay wines in 1991 (made in the garage of their Christchurch home), the family has honed a style that relies heavily on botrytis cinerea, or noble rot, for their dry, off-dry and sweet Rieslings.

The botrytis bounty

The spot Ivan chose in for his vineyards and winery, in the Waipara Valley of North Canterbury on New Zealand’s South Island, allows for exactly the kind of extended growing season that enables Riesling to ripen before developing botrytis.

‘It is tucked up right into the lee of the Teviotdale Range,’ Ed says. ‘On the other side, there is the Main Divide [a local name for the Southern Alps] which provides a rain shadow.’ So the now 40ha vineyard is protected on either side. The Glasnevin gravel soils are free-draining pebbles mixed with loam and silt.

Pegasus Bay makes five different styles of Riesling ‘to cover the full spectrum’ of sweetness, says Ed, and all are ‘very rich, full and unapologetically concentrated’.

‘We let the grapes hang for a long time and wait for a little bit of botrytis, but we want really nice, clean botrytis,’ he adds.

Grapes are harvested in several stages, and each wine has some botrytis influence. This ranges from about 10% in the Main Divide Riesling (a sister label to Pegasus Bay that includes purchased fruit) up to 100% in the lusciously German TBA-style Encore Riesling.

Only the off-dry Main Divide and the medium-dry Pegasus Bay Estate Riesling are made every year, while the Reserve-level wines – the dry Bel Canto, medium-sweet Aria and sweet Encore – are only made when the botrytis levels are right. Their names reflect Chris’s passion for opera.

‘My brother Mat deliberately does not measure the residual sugar in the fermenting wines,’ says Ed. ‘Once the right balance is reached, the ferment is stopped by cooling down and sulphuring the wines. We do not filter or cold-stabilise, so you will see some tartrates and some solids with time.’

Pegasus Bay Riesling: new and library vintages

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Riesling’s homeland is, of course, Germany, where it all started. Likely a descendant of wild grape vines growing in the Rheingau region, Riesling was first noted in 1435 and recorded as ‘Riesslingen’ in a record of a sale of grape vines made on 13 March of that year. As a result, the date has been designated as the variety’s unofficial birthday and decreed International Riesling Day.

Riesling’s fortunes rose and fell throughout the centuries. It had its moments; in the 18th century, based on a decree made in the Mosel Valley, all grape vines were removed and replaced with Riesling. In the 19th century, its prominence rose to equal that of Bordeaux and Burgundy.

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores for 25 American Rieslings from US editor Clive Pursehouse

The First and Second World Wars devastated German vineyards and, along with them, the fortune of Riesling. It wasn’t until 500 years after Riesling’s ‘birthday’ that America’s Riesling revival began on the shores of New York’s Finger Lakes.

Born in the USA

There was a lot of Riesling being made in the US before Prohibition, having been brought over by German immigrants in the latter part of the 19th century. Like much of America’s pre-Prohibition wine history, the finer points have been lost.

In 1958 Dr Konstantin Frank, a Ukrainian immigrant with a PhD in growing wine grapes in cooler climates, planted Riesling on the western shore of New York’s Keuka Lake.

His vision would launch New York’s modern fine wine production, particularly the state’s Finger Lakes reputation for producing world-class Riesling.

Despite modern American Riesling’s connection to New York, Washington State produces and grows more Riesling than any other state in the nation. First planted in the Yakima Valley in the late 1960s, the state now has over 2,100ha of Riesling vines. It was spearheaded by Chateau Ste Michelle, the largest single Riesling producer in the world.

Riesling in the Empire State

No region in the United States is as synonymous with Riesling as New York’s Finger Lakes. There are 405ha of Riesling vines planted in the Finger Lakes region, where more than 130 wineries produce 1,200,000 bottles a year. Riesling is the wine with which this region’s reputation has been built.

‘It could be argued that Riesling is an “underdog” variety,’ says Meaghan Frank, great-granddaughter of Konstantin Frank. ‘It is often misunderstood and not mainstream like Chardonnay or Sauvignon Blanc. The history of the Finger Lakes also aligns with this idea. With very few exceptions, we are a region of small family farms with little outside investment.

‘Though our winemaking story begins in the mid-19th century,’ Frank continues, ‘we haven’t had the fast growth of other domestic regions. Because of this, we have been able to experiment freely. This is especially true when it comes to Riesling.

‘Today there is incredible experimentation with Finger Lakes producers seeking out different aspects and soil types in the vineyard and winemaking techniques like skin contact and extended lees ageing. That’s why in the Finger Lakes, few wineries do not produce a Riesling, and really only a few make just one style.’

Washington and the world’s Riesling giant

Riesling is also immensely important to Washington’s wine industry and the big label that got Washington wine off the ground: Chateau Ste Michelle.

‘Riesling put Chateau Ste Michelle on the map,’ says Katie Nelson, vice president of winemaking at the estate – the largest single Riesling producer in the world. ‘We’ve been passionate about Riesling for over 50 years and our goal is to showcase the quality and diversity that Riesling is capable of. We make up to nine different Rieslings from bone dry to decadently sweet to show off Riesling’s stylistic range. Our partnership with Ernst Loosen of Germany on Eroica has helped shape how we grow Riesling in Washington,’ she adds.

Ste Michelle is far from the state’s only Riesling producer. While the first Rieslings were planted here in 1967, the variety has a strong future. Its cooler region, the Ancient Lakes AVA, produces brilliant Rieslings, year after year, for various producers.

California Riesling in the Napa Valley and beyond

Along with Trefethen and Stony Hill, Smith-Madrone is seen as one of the variety’s pioneers in Napa’s Cabernet country.

‘There are very few producers of Riesling today in the Napa AVA because so many producers didn’t, and don’t know, how to make it,’ says Stu Smith of Smith-Madrone. ‘They don’t understand that our steep volcanic soils and warmer climate produce a slightly different grape from northern Europe and that to get the best out of the varietal, it cannot be made as it is made there,’ he adds.

Many of the Rieslings in California are made in a riper, slightly phenolic style. Trefethen aims for a Riesling that captures the variety’s aromatics. ‘Our style of Riesling hasn’t changed since we started making this wine in 1974,’ says Hailey Trefethen.

‘Riesling has incredible aromatics and flavours; we aim to preserve and capture those. We use a low and cold fermentation to capture all aromas in the bottle. Aiming for freshness, bright acidity, citrus and stone fruit flavours, and a nice chalky mineral texture. We time our picks based on acidity and flavours typically yielding wines with a final alcohol below 13%,’ she adds.

In Santa Barbara County, Graham Tatomer leads the way with Rieslings of savoury and saline character. The Tatomer wines are made in a style reminiscent of Austria for his eponymous Tatomer label. His devotion to Riesling and Grüner Veltliner offers great promise for uncommon varieties in California.

Oregon’s great Riesling terroir

The cool maritime influence that makes the Willamette Valley such a beautiful place for Pinot Noir makes it a brilliant match for Riesling. While Riesling might struggle for attention owing to the success of Pinot and the rising popularity of Oregon’s Chardonnay, it may succeed in the Willamette better than anywhere else on the West Coast.

The founding father of the Willamette Valley, David Lett of Eyrie Vineyards, did not plant Riesling. But several vintners who followed closely on his heels did. As a result, there are many old vine sites where Riesling vines are nearing their fourth and fifth decades.

Those older vines, the varied soil types of the Coast Range foothills alongside a cool climate make for some brilliant Riesling potential. Perhaps the two most prominent devotees of Riesling – Brooks Winery and Trisaetum – are perennially responsible for some of the best examples in the Valley.

Martin Woods’ winemaker Evan Martin has been making Riesling since the 2015 vintage and does so masterfully. From dry to botrytis-tinged iterations to off-dry classics. Martin and many of the Valley’s next generation have embraced Riesling’s potential as one of the best matches for the Willamette Valley.

American Riesling – varied and distinctive – shows the country’s various terroirs and styles. It does so across the country’s diverse wine regions. For enthusiasts, there is something for everyone when it comes to Riesling American style.

25 American Rieslings to try

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It is what many dream of: you are an experienced executive at the top of your game, you have seen it all. Then you leave it all behind to buy a vineyard. And no, not in a famous region, but an emerging region on the other side of the world.

That is the story of Nigel Greening, British-born owner of Felton Road in Central Otago, New Zealand, who just celebrated his 25th vintage. But as anyone who has met Greening will know, marking this milestone is not a self-congratulatory rest on well-earned laurels but an opportunity to reflect on this ever-evolving project, as pioneering now as it was on its first day.

Artisan and authentic

‘I did not want to die of a heart attack on a 747 when I was 65. I wasn’t going to do the job I did,’ Greening says about his life in the mid-1990s. He was in his mid-40s then.

‘I was a creative director mainly doing very large corporate events, big expo pavilions; very stressful, high adrenaline, high-energy stuff. That was not a long-term thing.’ Yet Greening’s story differs significantly from the usual trope of a tech or banking tycoon buying a vanity vineyard.

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores for 12 Felton Road wines to try

Greening also happened to be part of a working committee set up by the British government with the remit of looking at what the new millennium would hold. This led to a connection with Oliver Sparrow, then director of the Chatham House think-tank.

‘I was privileged to have Oliver’s insight,’ Greening says and summarises Sparrow’s societal theory. Sparrow had identified four categories of people who would prosper in the age of post-industrial feudalism. ‘First, the surfers who’d keep up with the change of technology, see a wave coming, ride it without falling off, these would be the feudal overlords. Everybody else would become a serf. But artists or artisans, carers and authentics or originals would also do well.’

Greening took Sparrow’s theory – which has now come to pass – to heart.

Ticking magical boxes

In the end, it was a project for German car manufacturer BMW in the Far East that took Greening to the other side of the world. ‘I had been to New Zealand on holiday, and I liked it,’ he remembers. ‘So I said if I could live in Wanaka, maybe I’d say yes. They said New Zealand was fine, so I went to Wanaka for a year to work for BMW.

The first night I was there, I went into a wine shop to get a bottle of wine for tea. They had a thing where winemakers presented top New Zealand Chardonnay and I got a ticket. From that next morning – and this is interesting – I wasn’t thinking ‘oh yes that is what I want to do,’ but I realised if I started researching, if I could get it right. I could be both an artisan and an authentic, and tick two of Oliver’s four magic boxes.’

Apricots and elms

At the time, Central Otago was just emerging as a wine region. Stuart Elms, a hotelier and blackcurrant farmer from Dunedin, had prospected and bought land along the Felton Road in Bannockburn. He planted Blocks 1, 2 and 3 in 1992.

The first wine was made in 1995 by Grant Taylor, now of Valli Wines, then winemaker at Gibbston Valley. It was just one hogshead barrel, not even 250 litres. The first proper vintage was not until 1997 – hence the 25th anniversary in 2022.

At the time, Elms’ plantings doubled Central Otago’s vine hectarage, which grew from 19ha in 1990 to 244ha in 1999 and 2,055ha today. By then, Greening had done his research and divined Cornish Point, an apricot orchard, as his ideal vineyard. He bought the site in 1999 and planted it in 2000. Later the same year, he bought the Felton Road estate from Stuart Elms – hence the elm tree on every screwcap.

The adventure begins

Was Greening a wine lover before? ‘I was a Burgundy drinker of great enthusiasm in an age where we could still do that; and I was familiar with the things at Calera,’ he says, referring to the legendary California Pinot Noir estate.

When did biodynamics start? ‘Pretty much right away,’ Greening says. Winemaker Blair Walter and viticulturist Gareth King both wanted to convert to organics. Due to a number of Burgundy estates working this way, Greening was aware of biodynamic methods. ‘I wasn’t convinced by the science, because there wasn’t any, but I wasn’t averse to it,’ he says.

Trials started straight away. ‘It took us a couple of years of gradual transition, so it wasn’t too scary.’ But people took note of the wine, especially in the UK where the wines were first imported by the late John Avery.

‘One thing is weird about Felton Road,’ Greening says. ‘At the point I bought it in 1999, it still was not on the radar. But [US critic Robert] Parker had seen it and had given it an amazing write-up – that caused a lot of people to pay attention.’

Does he have any regrets? ‘Oh no,’ he says with complete conviction. He remembers a line in Decanter by one of the first wine writers ever to visit Felton Road, describing Greening ‘walking through Block 3 with a mix of paternal pride and a lottery winner’s disbelief’. He smiles: ‘This was three months after I bought it, right at the end of 1999.’

Two halves

Walter has made every Felton vintage since 1997 and King was on board almost from the beginning too. It speaks volumes that both are still there, not only having stayed the course but expanded, evolved and shaped it. Greening, Walter and King learned and evolved together.

‘We regard 2012 as our renaissance, the year when we woke up,’ says Greening. ‘2011 sealed it for us. Just as we got to harvest, the grapes just started losing it, so we hauled the vintage earlier than we usually do. Hang on,’ he says emphatically. ‘This is not as ripe but we like it better’.

This meant that they switched to picking earlier from 2012 onwards. He says ‘Felton Road lives in these two halves, before and after.’ The wines clearly have more tension and ageability now.

Felton Road at a glance

Founded 1992

Owner Nigel Greening

Vineyard area 32ha

Varieties Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Riesling

Key vineyards Elms, Cornish Point, Calvert, MacMuir

Single site wines Block 1 Riesling, Block 2 Chardonnay, Block 6 Chardonnay, Block 3 Pinot Noir

Forever evolving

‘We’ve got a very detailed replanting book that runs for about 30 years,’ Greening says. It is about future-proofing the estate, gradually moving over drought-tolerant rootstocks and ‘looking at new clonal possibilities as well as massal selections’. Everything is being fine-tuned.

‘Apart from the guys who do the viticulture, we have a technical viticultural team. They do nothing but measure. They are counting bunches, counting berries, how many buds versus the spacing between buds… They are looking to establish patterns of data. Every time they see a weak vine, it will be tagged, numbered and entered into a recovery programme,’ he says.

‘Everything is at individual vine level, leading to much more accurate control of things like irrigation. We are moving irrigation underground, ending drip irrigation. This is to help us with regenerative farming. We crimp rather than cut weeds… we have all these plans. There is a lot of technical stuff that we have to research.’

Insatiably curious

Greening clearly sweats the small stuff: ‘We are now formally auditing carbons to IWCA [International Wineries for Climate Action] standards which in itself is very instructive. I love the rigour of IWCA.’ Their carbon audit extends to recording the means of transport of every visitor to the tasting room – did they come in a 4×4 or cycle?

‘We have to audit for every bottle of Felton Road in the world to its final consumption. The only way you can do it is with algorithms, you have to start by building models and have to make assumptions. This is very rigorous stuff. We are learning a lot from it,’ he says.

So once again Felton Road is at the forefront of viticulture. Greening is clear what all this carbon auditing means: ‘Ultimately, we will have to plant a forest – it will be in New Zealand, 30,000 to 40,000 trees, as the maths work themselves out,’ he says with a satisfied smile which then expands to a broad, happy grin.

‘It is so much easier to plan for the future when you do not have to darling growth!’

Felton Road: 12 wines to seek out

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New York’s Finger Lakes AVA is synonymous with Riesling. While keeping up with the evolution of the Riesling style here is essential (and fun), there is much more to the industry.

Still, Riesling accounts for more than a quarter of the total vineyard area, and top producers are now turning out world-class wines.

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores for 11 Finger Lakes white wines

PLUS see recommendations for Finger Lakes red and sparkling & sweet wines

Cellar door sales have long driven sales in the region, and producers have supplied the market with sweet, inexpensive crowd-pleasers for years.

Still, over the past twenty years, more and more producers have been making riveting, acid-driven wines full of tension and minerality capable of ageing for decades.

Recent years have seen the appearance of single-vineyard wines that highlight different sites within the region. Forge Cellars, for example, offers eleven different Rieslings from the 2020 vintage.

Other producers work with a more limited palette of sites but produce a variety of styles from bone dry to off-dry to sweet, including fine examples of botrytis-affected and ice wine styles.

Many winemakers, however, also dream of expanding beyond Riesling to explore other varieties.

Chardonnay is often cited as the grape with the most potential. As long as growers and winemakers remain faithful to their terroir’s cold climate and mineral-driven nature and don’t try to emulate the richer styles of Sonoma County, they can produce outstanding, complex wines.

Other light-bodied, aromatic whites often attract attention. Many producers work successfully with Pinot Gris. Well-regarded Red Newt Cellars has produced several single-vineyard Pinot Gris and is currently working on an exotic experimental version of Pinot Gris aged under flor.

Winemakers in the Finger Lakes are also not afraid to think outside the box. Revered local pioneer Dr Konstantin Frank planted a vineyard with the Georgian Rkasiteli variety as long ago as 1983.

His great-granddaughter Meaghan continues the tradition and produces a version in the modern style (pressed and fermented in stainless steel) and a compellingly complex version fermented on the skins in amphorae.

See Charles Curtis MW’s tasting notes and scores for 11 Finger Lake white wines

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German Grosses Gewächs: Top 2021 whites and 2020 reds

It is 20 years since the Grosse Gewächs (GG) made its first public appearance. In September 2002, the Association of German Prädikat Wine Estates (VDP) presented its new wine category in Berlin: great dry wines from the best classified vineyards. That year, 78 wineries showed wines from around 100 sites.

With the Grosses Gewächs, the association’s approximately 200 members rejected the bureaucracy of the 1971 German wine law, which still evaluates a wine’s quality exclusively according to grape sugar content at harvest.

Scroll down for tasting notes & scores for the German Grosses Gewächs 2022 releases

The VDP, however, believes that the origin counts as well, not just ripeness. ‘Only a vine growing in harmony with its vineyard can produce grapes for truly great, distinctive wines that tangibly reflect their soil and climate,’ says Steffen Christmann, president of the association.

The new vintage has been released every 1 September since then, with the whites usually from the previous year and the reds at least two years old.

This September saw a total of 629 new Grosse Gewächse from 327 classified sites. The white wines, predominantly from the 2021 vintage, were almost a throwback to cooler times: with pronounced acidity and ravishing freshness. The 2020 reds, coming from a very warm vintage, showed just the opposite, expressed as high concentration and density.

2021 whites: a look back at cooler times

Sunny days were the exception in 2021, with warm and humid weather causing problems for winegrowers and promoting fungal diseases. Organic producers could only treat vines against downy mildew with copper and net sulphur, meaning they sometimes had to spray twice as often. Yet, says Frank Schönleber from Emrich-Schönleber (Nahe), he had to accept lower quantities. The subsequent harvest was precision work, with those who had already carefully pre-sorted in the vineyard being able to present brilliantly pure, classic wines, such as Schönleber’s ‘Auf der Ley’ Riesling.

Those sites that had suffered in the previous three warm vintages triumphed in 2021. The Rote Hang between Nierstein and Nackenheim in Rheinhessen had struggled with the recent hot temperatures due to its direct proximity to the Rhine; however, examples like Kühling-Gillot’s 2021 Pettenthal Riesling is showcasing delicacy and finesse. ‘Full ripeness with low sugar levels and crisp acidity,’ as owner Carolin Spanier described the year’s harvest.

Nahe producer Helmut Dönnhoff is also very pleased with their 2021 Rieslings. ‘In recent years, the grapes’ sugar had increased faster than physiological ripeness, while this time, sugar ripening was much slower.’ At Dönnhoff, the harvest lasted into November. Those able to balance the acidity in their wines with density and concentration, like brothers Oliver Haag (Fritz Haag Winery) and Thomas Haag (Schloss Lieser) in the Mosel, were the winners.

The region also produced many thin, tart examples in this vintage. Yet, the Mosel has a locational advantage for residual sugar and 2021 was an ideal year for the increasingly rare Kabinett wines – a style usually features about 8.5 percent abv and 35-50 grams of residual sugar.

In a difficult vintage like 2021, you can usually rely on familiar names. Among the Pinot Gris, the Henkenberg from Salwey (Baden) shone as usual. The Chardonnays from Baden winery Huber are always unbeatable, while Dr. Heger’s Pinot Blanc ‘Hinter Winklen Gras im Ofen’ (Baden) counts among the best.

2020 reds: rethinking viticulture

In contrast to 2021, 2020 was very warm and characterised by drought. This meant rethinking vineyard work; shading the grapes instead of defoliation and rolling the greenery rather than mowing it, thus helping preserve moisture in the soil.

Rheinhessen winemaker Klaus-Peter Keller says his vineyards sometimes resembled ‘a jungle’, ‘we let the wall of foliage grow until the canes bent over and covered the fruiting zone like a curtain.’

In vinification, whole clusters and open vat fermentation helped lower the alcohol levels slightly. Thus, his Morstein Felix Pinot Noir shows two faces: one highly concentrated and the other of dancing lightness.

Sebastian Fürst from the Rudolf Fürst winery in Centgrafenberg (Franconia / Franken) was equally successful. The Rings brothers (Palatinate / Pfalz) once again produced a convincing wine from the Saumagen site. And a discovery among the reds: Pfalz winemaker Steffen Christmann’s Pinot Noir from top vineyard Idig proves that he can also make great Pinot Noir, not just Riesling.

The unexpected

In Württemberg, the focus is almost always on Lemberger, but this time, Aldinger delivered the collection of the year. The Riesling and Pinot Blanc from the Gips Marienglas vineyard were just as impressive as the Pinot Noir and the, still reserved, Lemberger from the Lämmler.

A new name (and still a real bargain) appeared on my list of favourite GGs: the intense, modern-style Hundertgulden Riesling from Bischel. However, eternally beautiful classics, such as the reliable, serious, uninhibited great wines from Graf Neipperg (Württemberg) and Müller-Catoir (Pfalz), should not be overlooked either.

The 2021 Ahr flood washed away some vintners’ 2020 vintage barrels. Adeneuer was one of the few who could present a GG this year. Stodden, otherwise one of the front runners, had marked his GG barrels resting in the cellar with chalk. The flood erased the markings, but Alexander Stodden created the 2020 ‘Alexander Die Grossen’ from various barrels. It is not officially a GG but is nevertheless a great wine – a rarity and a record of contemporary history.

The results

2021 produced ‘retro’ Rieslings, whose fresh, striking acidity is reminiscent of the cool years of past decades. They thus have the potential to age.

The 2020 reds are hedonistic, powerful and expressive, already ripe for early consumption. Indeed, where is it written that red wines must always be made for the next generation to inherit?

Caro Maurer MW’s top white and red picks from the Grosses Gewächs 2022 releases

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