Riesling Rules Book

Riesling is used to make dry, semi-sweet, sweet and sparkling wines. In wine making, the delicate nature of the Riesling grape requires careful handling during harvesting to avoid crushing or bruising the skin. Without this care, the broken skins could release tannin into the juice, giving it a markedly bitter taste and disrupting the wine’s balance.

To preserve the fresh quality of Riesling, grapes and juice may be chilled throughout the vinification process: immediately following harvest to preserve the grapes’ more delicate flavors, after the juice has been processed through a press and right before fermentation. During fermentation, the wine is usually kept cool in temperature-controlled stainless steel tanks kept between 50-65°F (10-18°C). This differs markedly from red wine fermentations which normally attain temperatures of 75-85°F (24-29°C). Unlike Chardonnays, most Rieslings are not permitted to undergo malolactic fermentation. This helps to preserve the tart, acidic characteristic of the wine, giving Riesling its bright, vibrant quality and not introducing any extraneous or distracting buttery aromas.

Riesling is often put through a process of cold stabilization, where the wine is stored just above its freezing point. The wine is kept at this temperature until much of the potassium bitartrate (the acid salt of tartaric acid) has precipitated out of the wine. This helps prevent crystallization of the bitartrates (often called “wine diamonds”) in the bottle. After this, the wine is normally filtered to remove any remaining yeast or impurities. In order to avoid re-fermentation in the bottle, most Rieslings are sterile filtered because they contain residual malic acid and residual sugar.

Slate is the classic Riesling soil, although the grape also grows well in sandy loams. The grape excels in well-drained soils with poor fertility.

Good Riesling is like a window into the vineyard, reflecting very clearly where and how it is grown. Many experts agree that Riesling best expresses the notion of terroir, which considers the complete influence of the natural environment (soil structure, topography, sunlight, water…) on the vine, as well as the human interaction with this particular environment.

Though it may sound strange, Riesling has a transparency about it – a heightened sensitivity to its surroundings. Riesling responds best to cool climates and nutritionally poor soils with high mineral content. When you manipulate Riesling away from its natural environment, it will create mediocre wines that lack complex character and vitality.

Few would dispute that Riesling does not like new oak; new wood generally stomps all over Riesling’s delicate flavors. The variety also does not favor malolactic fermentation, which has the lovely floral characteristics that make Riesling the special grape that it is. Finally, Riesling generally prefers not to be blended with other grape varieties.

Biodynamic principles are quite applicable to Riesling because Riesling wines are typically quite connected to their place of origin. Biodynamicists consider the farm as an organism and they do not use any pesticides, herbicides or chemicals (organic or synthetic), relying instead on the Biodynamic preparations (essentially a form of viticultural homeopathy), and farming to the Biodynamic calendar – harmonizing the agricultural activities with the dominant aspect of the plant on a given day.

Riesling, because of its purity, shows cork taint arguably more than any other varietal wine. As early as 1976, Australian producer Pewsey Vale bottled Riesling under screwcap. Now most of the Australian Rieslings – like many US and German Rieslings – are bottled under screwcap, a guarantee of freshness and purity.

One likely parent of Riesling is Gouais Blanc, known to the Germans as Weißer Heunisch, which originated in Croatia and was brought to central Europe by the Romans. The other parent is probably a cross between a wild vine and Traminer. It is presumed that Riesling was born somewhere in the valley of the Rhine, since both Heunisch and Traminer have a long-documented history in Germany.

Most of the Riesling clonal selection comes primarily from Germany. France and the United States have done comparatively few Riesling selections. Below is a table of the most commonly found Riesling clones:

In the late 19th century German horticulturalists devoted much effort to the development of new Riesling hybrids that would create a more flexible, less temperamental grape which could still retain some of the elegant characteristics of Riesling. Among the most famous hybrids are: