Rieslingfeier – The 2017 Seminars

BY DAVID SCHILDKNECHT I JULY 18, 2017

Rieslingfeier is quite literally “a celebration of Riesling.” But the seminars held as part of this year’s event offered tasting and discussion that were thought-provoking – sometimes to the point of head-scratching – and seriously concerned with the future of Riesling on German and Austrian slopes as well as in the North American marketplace.

The fifth annual Rieslingfeier this past February incorporated an unprecedented four back-to-back seminars involving most of the growers who participated in the subsequent gala tasting and Paulée-style dinner. Attendees, who were very much encouraged to become vocal participants, spanned a wide range of wine professionals as well as Riesling-loving consumer-collectors.  

Eva and Hans-Josef Becker, Jochen Beurer, Andreas Hütwohl of Von Winning and Johannes Weber of Hofgut Falkenstein were the ‘Radikals’ featured in a seminar with that title

“Speaking German”

Flight One

2015 Dönnhoff Riesling Hermannshöhle GG

2015 Leitz Riesling Berg Schlossberg “”Ehrenfels” GG

2015 Schlossgut Diel Riesling Goldloch GG

Flight Two

2015 Dönnhoff Riesling Leistenberg Kabinett

2015 Leitz Riesling Klosterlay Kabinett

2015 Schlossgut Diel Riesling Goldloch Kabinett

The day of seminars led off with a panel moderated by sommeliers Raj Vaidya of Restaurant Daniel and Eduardo Porto Carreiro of Untitled at The Whitney and featuring Caroline Diel, Cornelius Dönnhoff and Johannes Leitz. Billed as “trade only,” its aim was to stimulate discussion of how best to promote German Riesling in a restaurant (and to a lesser extent retail) context. Vaidya drew widespread agreement when he pronounced on a disconnect between sommeliers and critics enthusiastic about this genre and a clientele that still needs coaxing. Unsurprising consensus also greeted Porto Carreiro’s observation that “there is room for off-dry as well as dry German Riesling, and the more the better” and his claim that widespread recognition and acceptance of the terms “fruity” and “off-dry” as alternatives to “sweet” had rendered it easier to talk about and convince consumers of German Riesling’s diverse virtues. At the same time, few participants in this seminar or Riesling-loving professionals in general would deny that this genre’s very diversity is also a source of confusion and hesitancy among consumers confronted with a German Riesling and wondering whether it will taste dry or slightly sweet.

The moderators encouraged participants to put the issue of residual sugar behind them so as to discuss other challenges and opportunities afforded in culinary contexts by German Riesling, but it was obvious that the matter of sweetness would not easily die. Someone suggested that a diverse range of analytically dry German Rieslings was disadvantaged on a wine list by its discontinuity with the off-dry or even outright sweet wines that are so often the sole representative of that grape among a restaurant’s by-the-glass offerings. I pointed out that one plausible explanation for this disconnect is that restaurateurs and their sommeliers understandably like the idea of offering at least one wine by the glass that’s both accessible to diners desiring sweetness and also capable of insinuating itself into culinary situations that aren’t well adapted to complete dryness. And if they’re going to offer only one such wine, it’s hardly surprising, given this genre’s amazing and nearly singular talent for integrating residual sugar not to mention its quality/price rapport, that the choice should fall on German Riesling.