riesling Archives - Old Parn’s Wine & Spirits Blog

A fresh, thunderstorm-clearing Alsace Riesling

… is a wine for rooftop terraces and golden sunshine

Fresh!

This is like walking outside into air just cleared by a spring thunderstorm (pavements still wet) after a day in a stodgy, stuffy office. It is delicious. Sharp (grapefruit sharp; stiletto sharp), with a flavour that rings out like a clean-struck bell.

A wine for rooftop terraces; a wine for golden sunshine.

Delicious.

Rating ★★★★ 4 stars (very good)
Grape Riesling
Region Alsace
ABV 13%
Price £6.25 for a half-bottle from The Wine Society; £10.95 for a full bottle.

Spy Valley Riesling review

… doesn’t have that too-big-for-its-clingy-dress quality that some New World Rieslings have, thank the risen Lord

God alive, I love Riesling. Did I mention that before? Oh, fuck it, I don’t really care if I did.

And Spy Valley. We all remember Spy Valley Gewurtztraminer, right? Well, this is the Spies’ take on the Riesling grape. And — what do you know? — they made a good job of it: this wine is elegant, poised, fresh.

Grapefruit is (I’ll warrant) what you’ll notice caroming vengefully out of the glass towards you. Both nose-wise and in your mouth. And, yes, there’s that dab of sweetness that I hardly even want to mention because a woeful number of people are unaccountably terrified of the notion of a tiny dab of sweetness. I mean, Christ. This is the same civilisation which unaccountably fetishises bloody chocolate for pity’s sake. Ooh! Chocolate! So decadent! So sinful!

Get a life, won’t you?

But, yes, anyhow. This is a Riesling with balance. It doesn’t hang around in your gob quite as long as some Rieslings, but it’s not a flash in the pan, either. And not an ounce of the sweetness cloys. Not a sodding ounce.

This is a lot better than many of its ilk. It’s not monstrously complex, but it’s incredibly smooth and clean and beguiling. It doesn’t have that too-big-for-its-clingy-dress quality that some (overripe, over-alcoholled) New World Rieslings have. And I like it a fair old bit. But it’s quite expensive. Spend that much on a German Riesling and you could get an absolute goddamn blinder.

Or spend it all on chocolate, if you prefer. You massive great weirdo.

Rating ??? 3 stars (good)
Region Marlborough
Grape Riesling
ABV 13%
Price £9.95 from The Wine Society, £12.06 from Bibendum

Mineralstein Riesling 2010 review (Sunday quickie)

… will zap you with spiced fruit

Anyone up for a Sunday quickie? Excellent. So let’s crack open a bottle of Mineralstein from Marks & Spencer, shall we?

Well. That is a boshing hell of a waft, right there. A fruity (grapefruity) zap, sprinkled with spice.

Then, in your mouth, it’s lively, nimble, with the softest fizz of bubbles on your tongue. Fruit and flowers. Off-dry, this one, but not cloying like that horrible Majestic number from a few weeks back. That’s thanks to a good strong lacing of sharp acidity — and also to a pleasant savoury quality. Olive? Yes. Biting into a ripe, sweet green olive.

What I’d say is that you want to chill this bad boy down good. It’s absolutely up to being slugged on its own — or, I’d’ve thought, alongside lightish fodder (simple, clean flavours, methinks).

Well done, M&S, good work here.

Rating ★★★ (3 stars)
ABV 12%
Price £8.39

Cave de Beblenheim, Grafenreben Riesling review

… will lower you into the most blissful vat of acid a secret agent could wish for

Sometimes you need acid. Perhaps it’s because you’ve just captured that irritatingly smooth secret agent who’s trying to foil your plan to TAKE OVER THE WORLD — and you’ve decided that the most risk-free and tax-efficient option is to lower him slowly into a seething vat of corrosive liquid. I mean, what could go wrong?

Or perhaps it’s because you’re a foreign chap called Beblenheim (in which case — could I just say? — you’re already well-equipped to be a fuck-on awesome supervillain) and you want to make a damn fine Riesling*.

Yes. Acid.

Because this wine is candied, fruited, plump. Both literally and metaphorically golden, it’s a shimmering fat jewel of flavour. Fruit and flowers. A heady brew that’s almost indecently aromatic.

And this is where the acid comes in. Not like Bond crashing vengefully through reinforced glass; no, like Bond deftly insinuating himself into the bed of a sultry maiden.

Its suave acidity is absolutely the key to this wine. A suave acidity that checks (without obscuring) those floral excesses with a razor cut of clean, bracing sharpness. Leave it lingering in your mouth for as long as you like, revelling in the luxuriant texture, the steadfast refusal to descend into banal sugar. And when you swallow, the flavours slip away without a belch, without a rasp, without a jolt.

Verdict

This, my chums, is what they mean when they say ‘balance’. A perfect alignment of classicist austerity and romantic ebullience. Reason and emotion.

A balanced wine (like a balanced person) doesn’t start off great yet gradually begin to irritate; no, it’s consistently good company for your gob. Meaning the last swig is just as beguiling as the first.

So, yeah. Old Parn has been beguiled by Beblenheim. Let’s just hope it’s not some kind of sophisticated honeytrap.

Rating ★★★★ (4 stars)
ABV 12%
Price £8.82 from Waitrose Wine

* Okay, okay, so there may not actually be a bloke called Beblenheim, as this seems to be a cooperative winery. But indulge me, won’t you?

Piesporter Michelsberg Riesling 2009, Zimmermann Graeff

… is cloying, over-sugared, facile — with that kind of stagnant sweetness that leaves a residue of post-boiled-sweet-overdose gank in your mouth for about an hour afterwards

You know how German wines are unfairly shunned on account of a reputation for sickliness garnered by the years of Hock, Liebfraumilch and Blue Nun? You know how getting some people to try a glass of German Riesling is like persuading Fidel Castro to front a Gilette ad campaign?

Well, let a doubter taste this Piesporter Michelsberg and you’ll set back the cause a decade or two. Because it’s cloying, over-sugared, facile. That kind of stagnant sweetness that leaves a residue of post-boiled-sweet-overdose gank in your mouth for about an hour afterwards.

Okay, so it’s not an expensive Riesling. But, hey, I’ve drunk plenty of great Rieslings at this price. I hoped we’d left this kind of thing behind.

So leave off persuading your friends to pick up a bottle of Zimmermann Graeff’s Michelsberg. You’d be better off pitching Castro that ad idea of yours.

Rating ☆ (0 stars)
ABV 9.5%
Price £5.99 from Majestic Wine

Prinz von Hessen Riesling Kabinett 2008

… has (alas) had much of it winning subtlety beaten out of it — leaving it cowed and wretched, cringing in the corner like a maltreated animal

Opening a bottle of wine is a time of almost intemperate joy for me. A time pregnant with possibility. My mind conjures the potential delights ensconced within those glassy walls. My focus sharpens. The world narrows to this: the loosing of the cork; the exquisite slow prise of the corkscrew (waiter’s style only, please); the first snatched whiff at the neck of the freshly denuded bottle.

(Before you ask, no, my palms are not sweating.)

What I mean is, there’s a hell of a lot of hope invested in those meagre 750 millilitres of liquid.

And that’s with any halfway respectable wine I open.

With a German Riesling, well, let’s just say that (in terms of relative expectation levels) Obama had it easy.

Because it was Riesling that started me off on all this. This wine business. Riesling that first fascinated me; Riesling that first beguiled me. Riesling that first made me realise how people got so damn into the whole malarkey.

Which is why I opened this bottle of Riesling Kabinett — snaffled in the Wine Society’s January sale — with even greater eagerness than usual.

ALACK, dear reader.

I was disappointed.

For a German Riesling, it’s fairly closed-down aromatically. Some fruit, some lavender and suchlike. But it’s hardly leaping out at you like a mad axe-murderer in a dark alley.

The lavender’s there in the mouth, too — but here’s where the axe-murderer does jump out. And hits you with a swingeing blow of winey bosh. It’s overwhelming. Not in a hedonistic pleasures kind of way; in a Blitzkrieg kind of way.

There’s a nice, unexpected hint of toffee to its finish, but unfortunately one that’s ultimately overridden by acid. So kind of like chewing a toffee that’s been soaked in vinegar, then. Which curtails the pleasure somewhat. Once that’s cleared, though, you’re left with some lovely delicate floral, peachy perfumes lingering. This is hands-down the nicest part of the whole experience. And the thing that keeps you going back to your glass, wondering if you got it all wrong.

But you didn’t.

Verdict

This actually reminds me of some of the New World attempts at Riesling that founder because of a climate or style of viticulture that’s unsuited to the strengths of the grape. If I was blind-tasting this, I’d say it was a Riesling from a too-hot part of Australia.

Because it tastes like much of the winning subtlety of the grape has been beaten out of it. Not completely removed, you understand; just cowed and wretched, cringing in the corner like a maltreated animal.

Which makes me sad.

The wine isn’t bad, I should add. But this is a not-inexpensive German Riesling, for Christ’s sake: it could be magical. It should be magical.

Which, given my lofty expectations is all bit of a shame.

You reading this, Obama?

Rating *
ABV 11.5%
Price £11.95 from The Wine Society (no longer available); £87.32 for six from Bibendum;