Winemaker Notes
If you loved the 2014 — and if you didn't, we need to send out a search party for your heart — you’ll find this one happy, happy, happy. Stronger than '14, it's also both drier and richer. And that’s as it should be; the pittance of sweetness it contains will rise and fall with the structure of each year's wine, because that's what sensible vintners do. The others just set up a formula and the wine"“has—XY— grams of sugar and zat's zat." Not Winnings Riesling. This will always be teasingly dry and teasingly sweet so you’ll keep changing your mind ("Wait, it's a dry wine, no, it's a sweet wine, no wait, it's a dry wine again….") while the bottle empties faster than you could have imagined.
Riesling possesses a remarkable ability to reflect the character of wherever it is grown while still maintaining its identity. A regal variety of incredible purity and precision, this versatile grape can be just as enjoyable dry or sweet, young or old, still or sparkling and can age longer than nearly any other white variety. Somm Secret—Given how difficult it is to discern the level of sweetness in a Riesling from the label, here are some clues to find the dry ones. First, look for the world “trocken.” (“Halbtrocken” or “feinherb” mean off-dry.) Also a higher abv usually indicates a drier Riesling.
This sunny and relatively dry region served for many years as a German tourist mecca and was associated with low cost, cheerful wines. But since the 1980s, it has gained a reputation as one of Germany’s more innovative regions, which has led to increased international demand.