How to choose a Riesling

by Gretchen Roberts, Posted Sep 25th 2008 @ 1:02PM

Pop quiz: Is Riesling dry or sweet?

Answer: Both. Confusing? You bet. One of the cool things about Riesling, Germany's most famous varietal, is its versatility in wines ranging from refreshingly dry to nobly sweet. But one of the uncool things about Riesling is that you don't necessarily know whether the bottle you're eying will be bone dry, sickeningly sweet, or somewhere in between.

Some producers already label their offerings "dry" or "sweet," but those terms are fairly relative. Enter the Riesling Taste Profile, a technical chart of parameters defining the categories Dry, Medium Dry, Medium Sweet, and Sweet. The label is strictly optional, though, and it may be some time before producers begin to adopt it.

In the meantime, here's an easy rule of thumb to follow when you're trying to figure out how sweet or dry a Riesling will be: look at the alcohol percentage. A low percentage (8-10) means the wine will be sweeter. A higher percentage (12-12.5) means the wine will be drier. Why? Sugar converts to alcohol in the fermentation process. The more sugar that's converted, the higher the alcohol will be and the lower the sugar.

I personally dig dry Riesling for its refreshing acidity, gorgeous fruit and honey aromas, and versatility with food, but the rest of my family wouldn't ever pass up a late-harvest dessert Riesling. Which do you like better--sweet or dry?

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Filed Under: Business, Drink Recipes, How To
Tags: dry wine, DryWine, riesling, sweet wine, SweetWine, wine

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Reader comments (Page 1 of 1)

9-28-2008 @6:42PM Anne Marie said... But what about winemakers who add sugar after fermentation? Not all sweetness comes from the natural sugar, therefore the alcohol content isn't a very good indicator at all of sweetness.
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9-25-2008 @9:22PM Andrew said... Alcohol content is really a poor way to determine sweetness. There's a ton of factors that go into the residual sugar content of a wine. The original sugar content of the juice, the yeast, cold stabilization, back sweetening the wine with reserved juice, etc etc. For example if you start with a high sugar content juice, and the yeast is capable of fermenting till it reaches 14% alcohol you'll have a sweet 14% wine. The opposite is true as well, if the juice is low is sugar the yeast can consume all the sugar and only have 8-9% alcohol content.

Then you have to add in the pH since that affects how you perceive sweetness as well. Oh my, this could go on for a while... :)

Sounds like the scale is a good idea. :)
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9-26-2008 @9:29AM Gretchen Roberts said... You're both right; it's more complicated than I made it out to be, and I should have specified that I'm only talking about table wine, not dessert wine. I don't think most people want to hear a dissertation on the technical details of chaptalization, residual sugar, etc., and I do think my rule of thumb will largely hold if you're looking at bottles at the wine store and want the best chance of choosing a sweet or a dry Riesling without tasting first. But of course, for every rule of thumb, there are many exceptions! The scale will be great if winemakers use it.
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