Riesling Taste Profile

originally posted by Rahsaan:
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
If only the wine's profile had been on the menu....
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Isn't that why they have servers/waiters/sommeliers?
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The sweetness scale is intended to help them, too. Most places don't keep the staff up-to-date on how everything tastes, and with less well known wines it's hard for them to remember anyhow.
 
originally posted by kirk wallace:


Nobody needs Riesling to sell better; the good stuff is hard enough to get and the crap should not be given wider distribution.
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What's crap? The last couple of vintages of St.Michelle, despite enormous production, have been nice wines. Plus a number of regions that are producing good but not well distributed Rieslings (Michigan, Oregon, New Zealand, even Finger Lakes are not that well known outside NY and geek circles) could use the help.

The threat of crap usually comes after a variety or region really takes off, and the trend-surfers and yield-stretchers jump on board.
 
originally posted by Christian Miller (CMM): Most places don't keep the staff up-to-date on how everything tastes, and with less well known wines it's hard for them to remember anyhow.
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That's not a good thing.

From my picky customer perspective I can usually afford to focus on shops and restaurants where the staff knows their own products.

But I can understand that for the broader commercial market there are different forces and needs.
 
originally posted by Joel Stewart:
I think riesling will sell better in the US when they change the bottle shape to burgundy, ferment to completely dry, blend with (take your pick): chardonnay, p.gris, viognier, etc, get rid of all foreign languages on the labels and have shelf talkers in the low to mid 90 pt range written by Oprah.
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Or put it all in black or blue bottles again...(but that was mostly sylvaner back then, wasn't it?).
 
originally posted by MarkS:
originally posted by Joel Stewart:
I think riesling will sell better in the US when they change the bottle shape to burgundy, ferment to completely dry, blend with (take your pick): chardonnay, p.gris, viognier, etc, get rid of all foreign languages on the labels and have shelf talkers in the low to mid 90 pt range written by Oprah.
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Or put it all in black or blue bottles again...(but that was mostly sylvaner back then, wasn't it?).
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And who remembers the golden age of Sylvaner? >:^)
 
Just out of curiosity, since this seems to be mostly about new world riesling producers, what are St. Michelle and Pac Rim doing in their winemaking as well as their pr campaigns to succeed with riesling enough to warrant the high production? They must be doing something "right" already...
 
originally posted by Joel Stewart:
I don't read the papers much...Just out of curiosity, since this seems to be mostly about new world riesling producers, what are St. Michelle and Pac Rim doing in their winemaking as well as their pr campaigns to succeed with riesling enough to warrant the high production? They must be doing something "right" already...
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Since when did winemaking qualities have anything to do with how much you can sell? >:^) But seriously:

St.Michelle - is big and well-managed and funded enough to obtain good distribution and visibility on almost any wine they focus on. The wine is priced around $10, often less on promo, so it's an easy reach for the casual wine drinker and an impulse buy for the wine enthusiast. The last few vintages have had a really nice balance of floral-fruit-acid-sugar IMHO, so that they will please almost any wine drinker who is not dead set against any RS in their wine or floral-phobic. Riesling has always been a pretty good seller for them, so they already had the distribution and supply to take advantage of the jump in Riesling sales in recent years.

Pacific Rim - was a spinoff of Bonny Doon, took Randall's already successful Pacific Rim Riesling and ran with it, being almost entirely focused on Riesling and having good sales, PR and distribution management.

Riesling in general - has the terroir and wine critic bonafides to appeal to wine geeks, the lightness and charm to appeal to wine novices, and (when made with some RS) appeals to consumers with a sweet tooth who don't like oak or heavy wines. The latter group is a significant chunk of population, who have had very few wines to "trade up to" if they got tired of White Zinfandel. In any case, there is a broad natural constituency for Riesling, it just took some changing of minds in the trade and some wineries with sales and distribution capabilities to take advantage of it.
 
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