Wine Education

Not All Riesling’s are Created Equal (or Sweet)

I was out to dinner the other night and searched the wine list for a good accompaniment to what I anticipated to be an awesome sushi dinner.  My target?  A good, DRY Riesling.  I asked the server about a particular selection.  Particularly, if it was on the sweet side.  She responded, without much pause, and said “Riesling’s are generally sweet”.  NOT!!  Now, I’ll subscribe to the notion that Cabernet’s are generally dry, but, as a wine/food server, she needed only a little wine training to know Riesling’s come in varying styles of dryness and sweetness.  And, that’s important when pairing food and wine.  Certainly, a sweet Riesling wouldn’t have been an enjoyable accompaniment to sushi for me.  Kinda like eating fish with ketchup.  I wanted something a little dry and acidic, and not too viscous to cut through the oils of the fish.  Don’t get me wrong, I do like sweet Riesling’s and there are many good one’s out there, but would probably have it with dessert if drinking it with food.

Riesling’s (or any other wine for that matter) obtain their sweetness from the residual sugar in the wine.  Residual sugar is just that, the amount of sugar remaining in the wine after fermentation.  In the U.S., we generally measure it in %.  Some countries measure it in grams.  A dry wine generally has between .5% to 2% residual sugar.  A sweet wine will generally be between 2% up to 6%.  A dessert wine would be above 6%.  Now, the acidity level in the wine can mask the sweetness.  A wine with 2% residual sugar can appear dry on the palate if there are higher acids in the wine.

When wine ferments, the yeast in the wine eats the sugar and the by product is alcohol.  So, when the fermentation process is arrested early, more residual sugar remains in the wine (sweeter wine) and results in a lower alcohol content wine.  Conversely, when the fermentation process is allowed to continue, the result will be a wine with less residual sugar (dryer wine) and a higher alcohol content.  We don’t want to confuse this process with what is used to make Port.  Port is a very sweet wine,  high in alcohol content.  But, Port is fortified with a grape spirit known as Aguardente (and commonly called Brandy) to raise its alcohol content.

General flavor characteristics of Riesling:  Honey-Grapefruit-Melon-Peach.  Also, mineral (slate or limestone) tastes from the soils the vines grow in.

What to look for on the nose:  Floral-Minerals.

Carmenere

I thought I’d shed some light on one of my favorite  grape varieties many find mysterious, and for good reason.  Carmenere (kar-ma-nair-uh) is often referred to as the lost Bordeaux varietal.  It was mainly used in France as a blending grape, much like Malbec.  Carmenere was wiped out in the late 19th century due to a Phylloxera epidemic which killed most of the vineyards in France.  Phylloxera are little insects that feed off the vines.

Prior to the Phylloxera invasion, Chilean winery owners imported Carmenere vines and planted them in their vineyards.  This is where the mystery of the grape begins.  For almost a century, Carmenere was thought to be Merlot.  It is very similar in appearance and Carmenere was thought to have died off with the other varieties in France.  Carmenere was picked as Merlot and labeled as Merlot.  It wasn’t until the early 1990’s, through DNA testing, that it was isolated as Carmenere.

In current times, Carmenere is almost indigenous to Chile.  Very little can be found around the world, including France.  Since realizing they had an abundance of Carmenere, Chilean wineries have been experimenting with the grape as it’s own varietal, as opposed to just using it as a blending grape.  Carmenere takes much longer to ripen on the vine than Merlot, so when it was picked with Merlot, it wasn’t ripe enough to show its true qualities.  Attempts in the 1990’s to produce it on its own many times resulted in a very “green” tasting wine with high acidity and a big smokey nose.  There is a distinct “green pepper” vegetal quality to the taste and nose, and when picked early it is much more pronounced.  Through experimentation, winemakers realized that Carmenere needed much more time on the vine to ripen.  Now it is picked closer to when Cabernet is (and many times after), which is much later in the harvest than Merlot.  After having learned how to handle the grape from vineyard to barrel aging to bottle, there are many stellar Carmenere’s coming out of Chile.  It has a deep red color, softer tannins than Cabernet, but still can be a bold wine.  It’s characteristics are spicy, earthy, green pepper, blackberry and coffee.

A few of my favorites are La Playa Block Selection Carmenere ($11) – Mont Gras Reserva Carmenere ($11) – Apaltagua Estate Carmenere ($9)

Carmenere Grapes                                    Merlot Grapes