Is dry German riesling an "invasive species"? Terry Thiese vs. Stuart Pigott

For German wine lovers, there’s an interesting dust-up between two of the leading advocates for German wine, Terry Thiese and Stuart Pigott, ostensibly over Terry’s characterization of the dry-style of German Riesling as an “invasive species”, to which Stuart took umbrage on his blog. The issue goes much deeper than the verbiage, of course, and it is interesting to follow the thinking on both sides, a debate in which David Schildknecht also participates. It’s unfolding on Lars Carlberg’s site (which I highly recommend for German wine-o-philes), and can be found here (I believe Lars has put this in front of his paywall):

Wow…deep stuff there, I may need to re read it a few times. Thanks for posting!

An intelligent PR person would have advised Mr. Thiese to respond as follows:
“Regarding the “invasive species” phrase, my apologies, I misspoke.”

Roberto - please let me know if you can get through it just the once. If you can, my congratulations to you on your near super human powers of concentration.

Seems pretty straightforward, just lots of info and points of view. But then I’ve been reading Terry and Randall Graham for decades…

Oof - Terry’s comments are a primer on why you shouldn’t use an abundance of SAT words to try and look smart if you don’t understand their usage. Across the world, English teachers are cringing.

Not to mention his producers.

“the omnipresence of dry wines within Germany is a dubious example of this country’s temptation to do things in large, implacable blocks”.
Terry Thiese
"I do not, by the way, accept the charge that I have impugned the “German national character.”
Terry Thiese

I’d say the average German would consider it a compliment that they all do things in a giant unthinking herd. How could Terry’s statement possibly be offensive to them?

Overall people get too freaked out over a couple of words. If one looks for the opportunity and makes the effort to assume the worst it is easy to get offended each and every day. To those who choose to live life that was I am truly sorry for your lot. Terry Theise could say much worse things about dry Riesling, and it would not change the course of the dominant dry wine culture. As usual, David Schildknecht uses many words to ultimately say the most sensible things. It just takes time to absorb the message.

“Overall people get too freaked out over a couple of words.”

David - I generally agree with you for average run of the mill people.

If you are a public figure, your words will be evaluated carefully. Especially if, rightly or wrongly, you are considered an authority on a subject. This is the second silly thing that Mr. Thiese has said in a few weeks (or series of silly things). At some point, maybe he should be a tad more careful with what he says particularly when he is speaking to small publications like the New York Times.

I would point out that authorities like Lars Carlberg, Stuart Pigott and David Schildknecht manage to say quite a bit without making these missteps. For some reason we never see embarrassing quotes like this from Rudi Wiest. Given the multiple blog posts on Pigott’s blog, Thiese’s words will be read by most winemakers in Germany. I don’t think that is a good thing for him.

The internet has made the term “public figure” much too broad. We’re all public figures now because we have the means to put ourselves out there. In this day and age a wine column in even the NYT is an electronic fart in a wind storm.

You are once again looking to fan the flames of outrage, making the concept of outrage weak by over use. I have little doubt that you are taking this much more seriously than any German producer will.

Oh I doubt anyone will find this that outrageous. I certainly don’t. It’s a tempest in a rather small teapot. Maybe a tempest in an espresso cup.

I find Pigott and Thiese firing broadsides at each other (with Schildknecht and Carlberg getting in the mix) pretty darned funny. I also find Mr. Thiese’s propensity for these gaffes rather amusing. I actually think that his errant swipes at Germans are mostly unintentional.

Fwiw, I drink my fair share of Willi Schaefer and Donnhoff and love Jakob Schneider’s wines along with Nikolaihof and nothing Mr. Thiese says will change that.

see next post—what Mr Cohen wrote really needed to be preserved for posterity, and I had initially failed to quote him in my response.

but as much as I admire the Nikolaihof, I must regrettably inform the previous poster that their estate is actually situated in Austria Austria - Wikipedia, not Germany, and eben deswegen probably not really relevant to this discussitude…

and Mr Theise imports them, last I checked…

I think it’s pretty clear that Matt is aware of all that and was simply pointing out that he enjoys many of the wines Terry brings in despite their disagreements.

Ooh. Keith spelled Mat’s name wrong. He’s a dumb head!

Seriously, even if Mat meant something else, and I read his post exactly as Keith did, the thing best preserved by that quote is a bit of pedantic pettiness.

Yes James - I was talking about Mr. Thiese’s portfolio. ALL the wines are from his portfolio.

Mat:

Since Stuart’s input is limited, I’d love to hear more about why you disagree with David and Terry. The insult song and dance seems mostly like an attempt to distract from what they say.

And I will also say up front that the whole “the market has spoken” approach to be rather self-serving and often disingenuous in the same way that Parker used that line as a validation of his support for high octane wines.

Agree in large part a tempest in a teapot. And I dearly wish Terry would bring in a few more Trocken wines, other than the GG bottlings. Though counting through his catalog, there are about 30 different Trocken wines on the list, maybe 10% of the total? The one I really miss is Donnhoff’s Felsenberg Trocken, which just isn’t available anywhere in the U.S. recently. What obviously matters is what sells here in the U.S., and Terry clearly knows that better than any of us writing here.

I didn’t and don’t disagree with the meat of their argument. The meat of their argument is that Riesling can be great across the range of the RS scale (I’d even add sparkling if you want to talk about that category). It’s somewhat sad that sales of non-dry German wines are collapsing in Germany as an interesting and wonderful category of wines will ultimately lose some diversity.

That is the glass is half full view. I would add that we are getting so many new incredible German dry Rieslings that I think that on balance we are way better off. Over 95% of the wine I drink is dry. Most people that I taste with enjoy the occasional sweet wine but also drink mostly dry wine. I’ve noted here and elsewhere that I think that most foods that I eat pair better with dry or off dry wines. Dry German Riesling is still an incredible bargain even at traditional retail.

I also love the off dry category (Steinmetz, Immich, Lauer, Schaefer Frohlich, etc.). I don’t have a viewpoint as to how these off dry wines will fare market-wise in the US.

I would also point out that if we go from 10 Tier 1 and 50 Tier 2 German sweet wine producers to 10 and 20 it won’t really be a disaster for everyone other than a small cadre of sweet Riesling lovers. JJ Prum, Willi, Donnhoff, Schloss Lieser, etc. are going to continue to make sweet wines.

What I disagree with and what Stuart disagrees with is the tone of Terry’s comments.

  1. Calling dry wine an “invasive species.”
  2. The statement that “the omnipresence of dry wines within Germany is a dubious example of this country’s temptation to do things in large, implacable blocks.”

I would also point out that I really don’t argue with people about the category of wine that they drink. If you want fruity red wines, there are very well made fruity wines in the Rhone and elsewhere. If you want minerally austere white wines there are plenty of those. The same goes for dry and sweet white wines. I would argue that 16% pinot noir is not a wine I would recommend to someone wanting a dry red wine. There is a difference between selecting a category and drinking poorly made wines in that category.

A final point is that one must recall the interest of the winemakers. Most winemakers are not wealthy people living in castles. They live harvest to harvest and struggle to make ends meet. We can all sit here and debate how it would be great if more sweet German wine were drunk in the US. That’s great. But sweet/dessert wine is a miniscule portion of the US wine market (I saw 2% recently). These growers need to sell wine to pay their bills. It’s a lot harder to grow the sweet wine category than it is to take market share from dry wines, which make up the majority of the consumption of wine in the US.

My humble opinion is that German wine importers (and their winemaker partners) are better served using their efforts to increase the sale of dry German wines rather than endlessly bemoaning stagnant sales of sweet wines.