From the archive: Refreshingly dry Alsace Riesling 2012 - panel tasting results

An underrated year like 2012 could mean some value buys, said our experts.

Originally published in Decanter magazine's March 2015 issue and now available online in full, exclusively for Premium members

84 wines tasted with two rated Outstanding
The panel tasters were: Thierry Meyer, Marcel Orford-Williams & Eric Zweibel MS

**While this was a good result, the terroir character of the individual grand crus did not sing, though some lesser-known names did stand out, says Thierry Meyer…**

This 2012 Riesling tasting was very successful, with 82% of wines Recommended or higher.

Despite asking specifically for dry Riesling, some wines were still perceived as too sweet, but usually this was due to a lack of concentration, rather than an excessive amount of residual sugar (75% had less than 8g/l, which tastes dry when the acidity and the structure are powerful enough).

While most wines showed great varietal style, it was a disappointment that so many grand crus lacked specific terroir character and showed little complexity. These were great premium Rieslings and we would have expected the individual crus to be more distinctive. Of the 84 bottles we tasted, 60 were grand cru wines representing 33 different grand crus.