At home with riesling

In Ian Jamieson's words, Riesling is the glory of the German wine garden. For although this great grape grows successfully elsewhere, especially in Alsace and Australia, it produces the best results in its Mosel and Rhineland home.

German Riesling is a unique wine, a high-wire balancing act between sweetness and acidity, delicacy and persistence of flavour, all this with the saving grace of being low in alcohol.

With ever-tougher drink-drive laws, German Riesling should be a wine for our times and an ideal choice in a restaurant. But it has suffered a very bumpy ride on world export markets because of its blurred image in the eyes of consumers, who continue to think of all German wines as being light, cheap and medium-sweet - victims, if you like, of the "Liebfraumilch syndrome".

What's more, restaurateurs are reluctant to list many German wines that they regard as not being friendly to food. Yet German Riesling in the 1990s is drier than it was 20 years ago, its incisive acidity making the wine a surprisingly good partner for certain dishes. The trick, of course, is to winkle out those wine-makers who have successfully met the considerable challenge of making balanced, palatable wine in a very cold climate.

The wines

Eleven German wines, all from the Riesling grape, were tasted on 8 August 1994 at the London offices of the German Wine Information Service. This tight selection was assembled with food very much in mind and in the realistic price band of £50-£150 a case excluding VAT. Most of the major Riesling-growing areas were represented.

From the classic vineyards of the Middle Mosel came fresh floral and delicate wines with less than 9% alcohol; from the Saar and Ruwer (tributaries of the Mosel) two top estates provided even more delicate yet excitingly flavoured Rieslings; the aristocratic Rheingau (Germany's Cote d'Or) fielded genuinely dry, powerfully structured wines that cried out for food; the Rheinhesse put forward a typically softer example; and the Pfalz contributed a couple of Rieslings that were higher in natural alcohol reflecting warmer soils and climate. As a final flourish an award-winning Auslese from the Nahe was shown.

The tasters

Our two guest tasters were Clive Roberts, chef proprietor of the Michelin Red M, Old Forge Restaurant, Storrington, West Sussex, and George Dorgan, a freelance food writer and regular contributor to Caterer. The Caterer team was wine editor Richard Gordon and wine correspondents Joe Hyam and Michael Edwards.

The tasters' verdict

The panel was unanimous in finding the general quality of the wines high. This was an unusually positive result, confirming Riesling's status as a great grape. But the judges did differ on the wines' suitability for serving with food.

Joe Hyam sounded a cautionary note: "I still think the problem for German wine is with food. I've been subjected to German wine and food pairings over and over again. I can't say I haven't enjoyed them, but I've come away thinking yes it does work but something else works just as well, and usually better."

As a chef, Clive Roberts put the problem in clear perspective: "It goes without saying that the Germans produce some magnificent wines, but to sell them at the price you have to try and sell them at, you really have to do a marketing job on it.

"People are never disappointed once you have convinced them that they are worth trying, though I still find it difficult to persuade customers that Germany can make good dry wines. As long as the balance (of fruit and acidity) is there, people will accept them; it's when they get out of balance that the problem arises. We've found certain German wines that we've tried have tended to taste over-dry, as though they've been overfermented to get a "dry" wine rather than a balanced wine.

"But this tasting was a good cross-section of the best of German Rieslings, some of which were excellent value for money and serious partners for carefully matched dishes."

For George Dorgan, "the tasting was really interesting. I must say that when I'm picking wines, Germany is generally well down on the list of countries I'll choose from, and if I was looking for German grape varieties I'd usually look at Alsace wines instead because I find them more friendly with food".

"But some of these German Rieslings l liked a lot. The Schloss Johannisberger (Rheingau) had a really nice mature flavour; I could see that with roastfowls like quail or poussin cooked delicately."