On July 17-19, 2016, Chateau Ste. Michelle of Washington State and Weingut Dr. Loosen of Germany hosted the fifth Riesling Rendezvous at Chateau Ste. Michelle and Bell Harbor International Conference Center in Seattle.
At the center of the 5. Riesling Rendezvous were 3 major tastings: the walk-around tasting at Chateau Ste. Michelle in Woodinville on Sunday, the blind tasting of 20 dry Rieslings on Monday morning and the blind tasting of 20 beyond dry Rieslings on Tuesday morning.
This posting covers the tasting of dry Rieslings. This posting is part of a series related to the 5. Riesling Rendezvous in Seattle, Washington State. Here is a list of all (already released and still forthcoming) postings:
5. Riesling Rendezvous in Seattle, Washington State: Overview
5. Riesling Rendezvous: Grand Tasting at Chateau Ste. Michelle in Woodinville, Washington State
International Tasting Dry Riesling
International Tasting Beyond Dry Riesling
The German Winemakers
Schiller’s Favorite Wine Bars in Seattle
Schiller’s Favorite Oyster Bars in Seattle
Riesling experts from around the world - top winemakers, representatives from the trade and restaurant sector, and journalists – gathered in Seattle to celebrate, discuss and taste the arguably most noble white grape in the world - Riesling.
The Riesling Rendezvous in Seattle is part of the so-called Riesling Coalition, encompassing 3 major Rieslings events in Germany (International Riesling Symposium), in the US (Riesling Rendezvous) and in Australia (Riesling Downunder). Following this year’s Riesling Rendezvous in the US, the Riesling Coalition caravan will travel to Germany for the next International Riesling Symposium in the Rheingau in 2017, then to Australia for the 2018 Riesling Downunder and return to Seattle in 2019 for the 6. Riesling Rendezvous.
For the 2013 Riesling Rendezvous, see:
The World of Riesling in Seattle - Fourth Riesling Rendezvous in Washington State, USA
For the 2014 International Riesling Symposium in Germany, see:
The 2nd International Riesling Symposium in the Rheingau, Germany
“Riesling Rendezvous has grown into the largest event dedicated to Riesling in the United States,” says Ted Baseler, president and CEO of Ste. Michelle Wine Estates. “We are extremely fortunate to have some of the most renowned Riesling winemakers in the world sharing their stellar wines to demonstrate the great attributes and diversity of Riesling.”
The symposium was attended by about 300 people, including such luminaries as Stuart Pigott and Stephan Reinhard (Robert Parker) from Germany and Paul Grieco and David Schildknecht from the US.
The pictures are mostly mine, but I have also included a few pictures that were published on Facebook by other participants.
Riesling in the World
There are about 47000 hectares planted with Riesling worldwide. Germany – with 22500 hectares – accounts for about half of the total. The second and third largest Riesling producer are the US (mainly Washington State and Finger Lakes Region) with 4800 hectares and Australia with 4100 hectares. But this is only about 1/10 of the total. Alsace follows with 3500 hectares. Alsace, Ukraine and Austria follow with 3500 hectares, 2700 hectares and 1900 hectares, respectively. Overall, Riesling is really a niche wine, accounting for less than 1 percent of total wine production in the world - but a very special niche wine.
The Panel
Moderator:
Ray Isle, Executive Wine Editor, Food and Wine Magazine
Panelists:
Stuart Pigott, Riesling Authority and Publisher of Rock Stars of Wine America
Young Shi, TasteSpirit
Tom Barry, Jim Barry Wines, South Australia
Morten Hallgren, Ravines Wine Cellar, New York State
Emmerich Knoll, Weingut Emmerich Knoll, Wachau, Austria
The Wines
Pikes, 2015 The Merle Riesling, Claire Valley, South Australia
Wine-searcher average price: US$40
Murphy's: Delicate, subtle and dry with vibrant lemon and lime flavours tightly woven around a core of slate and mineral acid that provides length and texture to this Pikes Merle Riesling.
A. Christmann, 2014 IDIG Königsbach Riesling GG VDP.Grosse Lage, Pfalz, Germany
Grapeswine.com: US$73
Marketview Liquor: Exotic aromas of peach pit, almond, clove and lemon oil. The full-bodied mandarin fruit is driven by vibrant acidity and exuberant spices. A savory wine with considerable finesse, showing impressive depth and length on the finish. One of the great dry rieslings of the vintage.94 Points Vinous
This was the first GG we tasted. What is a Grosses Gewächs - GG? In a nutshell, the VDP is moving to a classification system that resembles very much the classification system in the Bourgogne. The classification of the VDP puts the terroir principle at the center of its classification approach. With the latest modifications of 2012, the absolutely finest vineyards are called Grosse Lage and dry wines from these super top vineyards are called Grosses Gewächs. Grosses Gewächs wines are the finest dry wines from Germany’s finest vineyards.
To qualify for the Grosses Gewächs label, a number of criteria need to be respected. (i) The fruit has to come from a Grosse Lage vineyard. (ii) At harvest, the grapes need to be at least at Spätlese level in terms of the sugar content. (iii) Only certain – typical - grape varieties are allowed, including Riesling and Spätburgunder. (iv) Further restrictions apply: there are yield restrictions; only hand picking of grapes is permitted and harvest must be late in the autumn.
See also: Tour and Tasting at Weingut A. Christmann in Gimmeldingen, Pfalz, with Steffen Christmann – Germany-South Tour by ombiasy WineTours (2015), Germany
Wittmann, 2014 Morstein Riesling GG VDP.Grosse Lage, Rheinhessen, Germany
Hi-Time Wine Cellars: US82
Loosen Bros. USA: This wine grips you with its ripe yellow fruit notes. It is elegant and multifaceted with a firm mineral-rich finish. The Morstein vineyard is situated on a south-facing slope that dates from 1282. Wittmann owns about 10 acres in the best, southeast-facing parcel. The vines are well supplied with nutrients and minerals, and accounts for the mineral character of Morstein wines.
See also: Cellar Tour and Wine Tasting with Philipp Wittmann and Eva Clüsserath-Wittmann at Weingut Wittmann in Westhofen – Germany-South Tour by ombiasy WineTours (2014)
Ravines Wine Cellars 2014 Dry Riesling, Finger Lakes, New York State, USA
Wine-searcher average price: US$17
Eric Asimov, New York Times: Ravines Wine Cellars, one of the best producers, makes a wonderful dry riesling. I drank a 2009 and liked it so much that I bought a case, for just $14 a bottle.
Frankland Estate, 2015 Isolation Ridge Vineyard Riesling, Southern Australia
Wine-searcher average price: US$26
auscellardoor: The Frankland Estate Isolation Ridge Vineyard Riesling is consistently ranked among the best in Australia and has won widespread critical acclaim. Frankland Estate believe riesling produces the world’s greatest white wines and have made a major commitment to the variety.
Balo Vineyards, 2015 Dry Riesling, Anderson Valley, California, USA
Ökonomierat Rebholz, 2014, Kastanienbusch Riesling GG VDP.Grosse Lage, Pfalz, Germany
K&L: US$90
K&L: The nose is pungently assaulted by orange and lemon rinds, bruised apple, lavender and peat-like smokiness. Firmer in feel than its two immediate Grosses Gewächs siblings, this takes a stony, rather austere turn in its undeniably gripping and formidably piquant finish. The sense of palpable extract richness with buoyancy borne of modest alcohol is especially striking here. This definitely needs time. (DS) (5/2016)
See also: Tasting at Weingut Ökonomierat Rebholz in Siebeldingen, Pfalz – Germany-South by ombiasy WineTours (2015)
F.X. Pichler, 2014 Kellerberg Riesling Smaragd, Wachau, Austria
JJ Buckley: US$ 90
Vinous - Antonio Galloni's Vinous, February 2016: Headily fragrant and lusciously mouth-filling honey-slicked peach and mango are complemented by incisive pepper, piquant peach kernel, pungent green herbs, smoky tobacco, zesty citrus peel and shimmering crushed stone. Sheer energy seems to reverberate in an unforgettably ravishing and sustained finish. - David Schildknecht
See also: Vintage 2011 Tasting with Lucas Pichler, Weingut F.X. Pichler, with Dirk Wuertz at his Koenigsmuehle in Rheinhessen, Austria/Germany
Red Newt Cellars, 2014, The Knoll, Riesling, Lahoma Vineyards, Finger Lakes, New York State, USA
Wine-searcher average price: US$12
WineFront: Finger Lakes wine region in New York state. Five grams residual sugar. It’s a wine where numbers don’t tell you much. Lemon/lime vibes here, almost tropical fruitiness in mix, touch of green herbs, very aromatic, high toned floral notes, pretty scents. Some gras/fattiness in this wine, really lovely though, licks of honey and spice, good length, good concentration, power. 94
Emmerich Knoll, 2013 Ried Schütt Riesling, Smaragd, Wachau, Austria
Grand Vin Wine Merchants US: US$67
Stephan Reinhard: Purity, density and minerality – this trilogy seems to be the leitmotif of the 2013 Dürnsteiner Riesling Smaragd Ried Schütt, which reveals a clear and deep bouquet of ripe fruit aromas and some vegetal notes. Pure and elegant on the palate, the Schütt Riesling combines complexity and intensity with elegance and persistence for a great and expressive Riesling monument of the Wachau. It is even finer than the Kellerberg Riesling Smaragd. Drink: 2018-2035. 95+ point
Albert Mann, 2014, Grand Cru Schlossberg Riesling, Alsace, France
Wine-searcher average price: US$41
Buon Vino: Riesling Grand Cru Schlossberg, gloriously refreshing organic Alsace wine, aromas of fennel, grapefruit, honeydew melon and an underlying 'sea breeze' minerality.
Mari Vineyards/ Scriptorium 2015 Riesling Old Mission Peninsula, Michigan, USA
WineFront: From Michigan, where there’s a great culture of wine, but mostly under radar. The AVA is Old Mission Peninsula. Holds 6 grams of residual sugar, but you wouldn’t know. On the edge. Bright lemon/lime cordial scents, aromatic as all get out, lots of prety spice, gingerbread, touch of rose water, green herbs. Limey in the palate, soft, juicy, long in flavour, washy and delicious feel. Brisk acidity finishes the wine, lots of chalkiness in texture, well integrated. It’s absolute neck oil, it’s a brilliant expression.
Tantalus Vineyards, 2013, Old Vines Riesling, Okanagan Valley, British Columbia, Canada
Wine-searcher average price: US$25
BC Liquor stores: From vines planted in 1978, the wine is dry in style with considerable acidity. Flavours of tart tree fruits, apple, nectarine and more are there but will intensify with age. There is nothing more luxurious and impressive then a white wine like Riesling from your cellar.
Winefront: The ‘joke’ is, Okanagan Valley in Canada is the ‘new world Alsace’. It’s a contender these days, at least. A wine region on the rise, vine age, good grape varieties, big international input from winemakers (Aussie and Kiwi accents are rife!). Indeed David Patterson is winemaker, ex-New Zealand, but via Henschke… It holds 9 grams of residual sugar, and for numbers geeks, 10.7 grams of acidity at pH of 2.75…Wild. Lemon, custard, sweet spice, lemon curd, sweet scents. Palate is really zingy, electric, bristles with insane, sherbetty, tangy, just-ripe lemony tang. Whoo! Mouth puckering chalky/slate-like mineral finish. Intense! But kinda awesome too. Ultra refreshing. 94
Chateau Ste. Michelle, 2014, Dry Riesling Columbia Valley, Washington State, USA
Wine-searcher average price: US$9
WineFront: Fancy, huge, elaborate winery and an affordable Washington state riesling. Wet slate, granite, green herbs, black currant scents. Supple, succulent palate, licks of honey amongst lime mineral water character. Has a potency, generosity, tight line of acid in soft fruity wash, but the wine feels rapier like in its thrust across the palate. Nicely balanced. Good wine. 91
Hidden Bench, 2014, Roman's Block Riesling, Ontario, Canada
Wine-searcher average price: US$24
WineFront: 10.5% alcohol, 10.2 grams residual sugar, 10.9 grams of total acidity. A wines of tens. Fascinating wine from an unexpected place, Ontario, Canada. Not too far from Niagra, but in Beamsville. Close-ish to Lake Ontario too. Ultra floral, pot pourri and old roses scents, sniffs of honeycomb, candlewax, graphite and grainte. Mineral and savoury edged perfume. Punchy palate showing deep concentration of apple/sweet lime flavours, quite chalky in texture, finishes soft, succulent, then moves to a pucker. Quite the class act here, with a savoury x-factor. Feels fancy. 95
Jim Barry Wines, 2012, The Forita Riesling, Claire Valley, Australia
Wine-searcher average price: US$32
Harrods: Jim Barry’s 2012 The Florita is a pale straw yellow colour in the glass, with green tints. With an intensely aromatic nose of lemon, lime and pineapple sage, there are complex undertones of mandarin, tangelo and lychee. The palate is a classic expression of both line and length - full, textural and structured. A soft natural acidity is a lovely introduction into the flavours of strawberry and guava. The wine becomes zesty, with a fresh juicy finish - a magnificent benchmark dry Riesling.
Famille Hugel, 2010, Riesling Grossi Laüe, Alsace, France
Wine Chateau: US$54
Berry Bros and Rudd: The first ever offering of this wine, with it previously being known as the Jubilee Riesling. They have taken the opportunity the change in name has given to dial this up more than a notch or two, this is one of the best defined and purest Riesling that I have tried for some considerable time.
It is clearly on a par with Frederick Emile from the Trimbach Estate (my previous benchmark wine) and its amazing pure expression is a wonderful thing. Crystalline fruit and a lovely touch of peach combines with classic Riesling petrol notes. This is 5 years old and yet tastes as though it was made yesterday, with this in mind I am predicting a long and glorious future, certainly 15 years and possibly 20 years for this beauty of a wine.
Brooks Wine, 2012, Ara Riesling, Willamette Valley, Oregon, USA
Wine Works: US$24
The Wine Advocate - "The 2012 Riesling Ara comes from the estate vineyard and a second in the Yamhill area. The bouquet is very attractive with scents of nectarine, blood orange and honeysuckle aromas that are very intense and well defined. The palate is brisk on the entry with a fine bead of acidity that cuts through the slightly viscous texture. There is great weight and real energy here, getting to the essence of Riesling better than many Oregon Rieslings that I have encountered. Excellent.
Battenfeld-Spanier, 2011, Frauenberg Riesling, GG, VDP.Grosse Lage, Rheinhessen, Germany
Lyle Fass: Since 2008 H.O. Spanier has separated himself from the pack, and in this taster's opinion H.O. Spanier is on the wine making level of the great Klaus-Peter Keller. Stylistically they are different but qualitatively they are equal. The style at Battenfeld-Spanier as it is currently is waves and waves of opulent fruit with a texture that is unlike anything I have ever experienced in fine German Riesling on a bed of super intense minerality.
See also: Wine Tasting at Weingut Kühling-Gillot in Bodenheim: Kühling-Gillot and Battenfeld-Spanier Wines – Germany-North Wine Tour by ombiasy (2014)
Dr. Loosen, 2012, Ürziger Würzgarten, Riesling GG Reserve, VDP.Grosse Lage, Mosel, Germany
Ernst Loosen, well known for his fruit-sweet Kabinett, Spätlese and Auslese wines and noble-sweet Beerenauslese, Trockenbeerenauslese and Eiswein wines: “There is a growing interest in the trocken style. Therefore, I decided a few years ago to supplement the Dr. Loosen wine portfolio with dry wines, including ultra-premium dry GG wines”. But I will never give up making my delicious Kabinett, Spätlese and Auslese wines, Ernst said.
100 years ago, Mosel wines, and more generally, German wines, were all dry (except for the rare noble-sweet wines) as winemakers were not able to make low alcohol, fruity-sweet Kabinett, Spätlese or Auslese wines. This changed with the invention of sterile filtration, enabling winemakers to interrupt the fermentation and bottle low alcohol wine with residual sugar, without fear of bacterial spoilage. Until the invention of sterile filtration, German wines were dry. Fermentation continued until all the sugar was consumed, leaving only miscellaneous unfermentable sugars. Only the occasional sweet rarity, made from extremely ripe grapes, kept any residual sugar.
On his father’s side, Ernie said, wines were always produced in a dry style, while on his mother’s side (his mother came from the Prüm family), after the technique to make fruity-sweet wines became available, wines were always made in a sweet style.
This was the only GG Reserve wine in the tasting. While the GGs are released 12 months after harvest, the GG Reserve wines are aged longer. This is the same wine as the Ürziger Würzgarten GG but with an extra 12 months in the 1000 liter Fuder cask before being bottled. This stunning wine is richer and more complex, and the acidity more integrated. This is only the second vintage that Weingut Dr. Loosen has made a GG Reserve.
Ernst Loosen: “These Reserve Rieslings are a unique approach to Grosses Gewächs wines, which are dry Riesling from the top Grosse Lagen (Grand Cru) vineyards. I am returning to the traditions of my great grandfather who produced exclusively dry Riesling from our best vineyards and aged them for 24 to 36 months in large oak Fuder barrels. I have always believed that dry German Riesling deserved the same respect internationally as sweet Riesling, which has not been the case up to now. With the Grosses Gewächs Riesling Reserve, I feel we are now at the level of excellence I have been striving for over the last 25 years.”
See also:
The Dry and Ultra-premium Dry GG and GG Reserve Rieslings of Weingut Dr. Loosen – Ernie Loosen in Washington DC
Wine Tasting at Weingut Dr. Loosen in Bernkastel-Kues, Mosel – Germany-North by ombiasy WineTours (2015)
A New Dr. Loosen Project Setting the Standard for Dry German Rieslings
Ernst Loosen Presented his Wines at Weingut Dr. Loosen, Bernkastel-Kues, Mosel Valley, Germany
schiller-wine - Related Postings
The 2nd International Riesling Symposium in the Rheingau, Germany
Heads up for the 2017 Tours - to Germany and France - by ombiasy WineTours
Germany-East Tour 2016 by ombiasy WineTours: Wine, Art, Culture and History
Germany-North Tour 2016 by ombiasy WineTours: Quintessential German Riesling and the Northernmost Pinot Noir
Germany-South Tour by ombiasy WineTours (2015)
Thomas Schlumberger, Domaines Schlumberger in Alsace, presented his Wines at Bistro Lepic in Washington DC, USA, France
Vintage 2011 Tasting with Lucas Pichler, Weingut F.X. Pichler, with Dirk Wuertz at his Koenigsmuehle in Rheinhessen, Austria/Germany
Hugel et Fils Wines and the Cuisine des Emotions de Jean Luc Brendel at Riquewihr in Alsace, France
Tasting at Weingut Ökonomierat Rebholz in Siebeldingen, Pfalz – Germany-South by ombiasy WineTours (2015)
Kiedrich: Visit of the Basilica of Saint Valentine and of Weingut Robert Weil - Germany-North Wine Tour by ombiasy (2014)
Cellar Tour and Wine Tasting with Philipp Wittmann and Eva Clüsserath-Wittmann at Weingut Wittmann in Westhofen – Germany-South Tour by ombiasy WineTours (2014)
Tour and Tasting at Weingut A. Christmann in Gimmeldingen, Pfalz, with Steffen Christmann – Germany-South Tour by ombiasy WineTours (2015), Germany
The Dry and Ultra-premium Dry GG and GG Reserve Rieslings of Weingut Dr. Loosen – Ernie Loosen in Washington DC
Wine Tasting at Weingut Dr. Loosen in Bernkastel-Kues, Mosel – Germany-North by ombiasy WineTours (2015)
A New Dr. Loosen Project Setting the Standard for Dry German Rieslings
Ernst Loosen Presented his Wines at Weingut Dr. Loosen, Bernkastel-Kues, Mosel Valley, Germany
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