OK, so long time wine drinker but have largely ignored Germany (no idea why but I tend to get focused on a region and a bit overly obsessed so trying to expand my tastes/experiences). Looking for a few recommendations both red/white and somewhat easy to obtain (live in Northern NJ so a fair amount of really good wine stores). Nice long 3 day weekend to begin the exploration!
Find a shop with a selection of Selbach-Oster wines and start from there! Excellent wines at reasonable prices, and you can largely cover the gamut of the whites. They don’t do much trocken (dry), but their halbtrocken and feinherb wines are amazing, and they are great in the kabinett, spatlese & auslese ranges.
I urge you to try the wines with food, maybe mildly spicy Indian or Thai.
If you are coming into these wines cold, they will probably taste a bit sweet to your palate. The Asian foods I listed will create a bit more balance.
And I second David’s choice of producer. If you happen to find any Keller wines … Limestone or RR … don’t hesitate
Spatburgunder!
They’re sold out for tomorrow but you might want to check out Rieslingfeier in NYC next year. A good way to taste the current vintage.
Maybe start with Kabinett from top producers like Prum, Selbach Oster, Joh.Jos. Christoffel, Dr. Loosen, Josef Leitz, Von Schubert, Willi Haag, Willi Schaefer, Zillien Saarburger,
And work your way to Spatlese and Auslese. You’ll get a feel what the type of sweetness:acidity ratio you like. Thankfully Riesling isn’t as hard on your pocketbook as Burgundy, Bordeaux, Barolo
For Riesling, look out for vintages: 01-07, 09, 11, 15, 16
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Yeah…some in there I would leave out, and a couple of good ones missing.
Let’s fix it.
01-02, 04-05, 07-08, 10, 12-13, 15-17. Least favorite in that stretch for me are 05, 13, 16, 17 as a general matter. Nothing wrong with 09 and 11; just not particularly my style. I see no reason to backfill 03, 06, 14, but YMMV.