We — as a people, as a culture, as a nation — don’t drink enough riesling. This is not my fault. I drink plenty, thank you very much, due to advice received many years ago from sommeliers including Mark Shishido at Alan Wong’s.
A dinner last week at Alan Wong’s featured the rieslings of Ernst Loosen, of the German winery Dr. Loosen, who walked the floor with Shishido, dispensing wisdom, to wit:
WHY YOU SHOULD DRINK RIESLING
>> It pairs extremely well with the food we eat in the islands, sweet-salty, sometimes spicy, and often with earthy flavors like shiitake and black bean. Its crisp acidity and light profile help make the match.
>> You can have it with bubbles. Germany has an age-old tradition of sparkling rieslings, called spekt. Many of the renowned French Champagne labels were founded by Germans, thus names like Krug and Mumm. Because of limited production, spekt is rarely exported, so grab it if you see it. We had some with a dish of citrus-cured kampachi.
>> “Riesling really likes dishes with umami,” Shishido said. This refers to food with deep, ultrasavoriness, like seared nairagi with a tamarind-tomato sauce and ratatouille-style vegetables. This was paired with a very dry “Erderner Pralat” GG from 2015 that played perfectly off all that depth of flavor.
>> Riesling ages well, 20-plus years, rare for most white wines, which allows the wine to mature from bright and vibrant to deep and complex. This aging potential is rooted in the wine’s higher acidity and sugar content, Shishido said, “although the Germans would say it has more love.” We had a 2001 auslese — made from late-harvest, very ripe grapes — which tends to run sweet, as well as a very sweet 2006 beerenauslese. Both were, for lack of a more sophisticated word, yummy.
WHY YOU DON’T DRINK RIESLING
>> Confusion, Loosen said (although I suspect what he really wanted to say was “ignorance”). Riesling comes in many styles, from dry to very sweet, and many of the names are hard for Americans to pronounce, much less remember. “People are too confused,” he said. “It’s too complicated, so, ‘I’ll take a pinot grigio.’ That’s easy to spell and it’s only one style.”
>> Supply is limited, Loosen admits, “tiny compared to chardonnay, sauvingnon blanc, pinot grigio.” That’s partly because of the specific growing conditions needed for the riesling grape, but also, Shishido said, because of limited demand.
BUT STILL…
You can get great rieslings in Hawaii, in stores and restaurants. Shishido suggests:
>> CF Euro-Asian and CF Estate rieslings, both projects of Hawaii master sommelier Chuck Furuya, in partnership with German winemakers Johannes Hasselbach and Bert Selbach.
>> Jean-Baptiste Adam Riesling from Alsace in France, near the German border.
>> Zilliken, a longtime family-owned weingut (vineyard and winery) in Saarburg, Germany.
>> Pacific Rim Riesling, from the Columbia Valley in Washington state. It comes in styles from dry to sweet.
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