The other day I shared a bottle of sweet-ish riesling. I didn’t drink it with a meal, and certainly not with a dessert. It was outside, under a tree, mid-afternoon. We thoroughly ignored what little food there was, since spare attention was addressed towards the wine. Not that it was a fussy, demanding, cerebral sort of a wine – it was just a very decent drink indeed. So good that it made me wonder why more Australians weren’t out there doing this sort of thing more often. The wine in question was a German one, a Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Kabinett, 2000 vintage, by the celebrated Dr Loosen, from an excellent vineyard in the epicentre of the Middle Mosel region. It’s bright and fragrant, scented with lemon, lime and honeysuckle, with as lively and crystal-clear a palate of pristine fruit you could jump into. Delicious! Sure it’s sugary, but its tangy, citrusy acids lend it a pleasantly refreshing finish. Furthermore, it’s a mere 7.5% alcohol. Got that? Seven and a half percent! You can actually drink this stuff outside and not feel (much) the worse for it! So why is an incredibly simple and satisfactory event also such a rare occasion? Why is it that even serious Australian wine drinkers look at you somewhat askance when they discover the riesling you are drinking contains sugars the winemaker chose not to ferment? What imbecile would suggest that every wine has to be as dry as the Todd River? In reality, it’s just a typical, if vaguely understandable Australian over-reaction. A reaction against the bad old days when Australian white wine began with Ben Ean and ended with Muroombah, Coolibah, Tymes or some such other Moselle (aka sweet white). It was a terrible time, several years BC (Before Chardonnay), when the aisles of Australia’s largest wine stores were also overflowing with such expressions of the German winemaker’s art as Black Tower, Blue Nun, Wild Boar and other such decoratively presented expressions of sugary, grapey water, sold to a then innocent world as ‘Liebfraumilch’. Personally, I still shudder at the memories, even though as a wine writer I’m supposed to have become hardened to that sort of thing. Then we had the Austrian-German wine scare, which involved the addition of anti-freeze to wine. All such wine was instantly snubbed. Moselle’s time was up, chardonnay took its chance, and we haven’t looked back. Which is precisely the problem. All this coincided with the Australian wine drinking population deciding en masse that German was one too many languages to learn, even if it only left us talking Strine. German wines were too hard to understand. Their labels were darned near impossible to say, let alone to figure out. All of which makes impressing the object of attention on the opposite side of the restaurant table rather difficult to achieve, especially if you’ve already been out to lunch. We all had to learn words like ‘kabinett’, ‘spatlese’ and ‘auslese’, pronounced by most drinking Australians as ‘carbinet’, ‘schpatel-ayse’ and ‘ossle-ayse’ respectively. It wounded German ears as much as Aussie pride, and it couldn’t last. So it didn’t. So, back to Dr Loosen’s rather delicious Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Kabinett 2000. You can tell in an instant that the Germans have yet to mend their ways. Their labels are as impossible to say and as incomprehensible as ever they were. Clearly, they are not a user-friendly people, but that won’t surprise many of you. But don’t hold that against them today. But do remember the word ‘Kabinett’ – for these wines are appreciably, but not excessively sweet, and they’re usually pretty good. They’re also perfect for most people who’ve never, ever found a wine they can enjoy. Embrace the flavour, the freshness and indeed the sweetness of good German wine. There’s not been a local equivalent of any quality for about twenty years. You need to ripen your fruit exceptionally late to be able to accumulate such flavour to leave such sugar levels and low alcohols, which means you need a seriously cool climate. Some Tasmanian wines have gotten close, while the New Zealanders do indeed make rather a lot of attractive sweet riesling. Give this sort of wine a try. But before you do, get some decent advice at retail, or else try before you buy. That way, I’m certain we’ll remain friends. Ein prost. Breakaway: Ten darned good sweet-ish rieslings: Felton Road Riesling 2001 (New Zealand) Vavasour Riesling 2000 (New Zealand) Dr Loosen Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Kabinett 2000 (Germany) Dr Loosen Bernkastler Lay Riesling Kabinett 2000 (Germany) Grans Fassian Riesling Kabinett 1999 (Germany) Georg Breuer Estate Riesling 1999 (Germany) Domaine Weinbach Cuvee Theo Riesling Clos des Capucins 1999 (Alsace) Domaine Rene Mure Clos St Landelin Grand Cru Vourbourg 1998 (Alsace) Josmeyer Riesling Le Kottabe 1999 (Alsace) Caves du Beblenheim Riesling Reserve 2000 (Alsace)
