My brother-in-law drinks wine every now and then but has become interested in learning more about riesling. I don’t have a good sense of his preferences (the one riesling he knows he gets regularly is Firestone, but he buys others as well), so we thought it’d be useful to do comparative tastings together via Zoom so he can learn more. Any tips from those of you who have instructed others in the past who are total newbies on what has worked/not worked at an intro level? Some ideas I had, using the same producer/vineyard when able:
Compare residual sugar (trocken vs. halbtrocken/feinherb)
Compare ripeness (kabinett vs. spätlese)
Compare vintage characteristics (e.g. 2015 vs. 2016 German riesling)
RS/ripesneess/pradikat is probably one of the most beneficial ones to try. Lots of pre conceived notions of what riesling tastes like, that showcasing the breath of styles is always useful to helping guide people in their riesling journey. That’s probably where I’d start off with in a 101 to allow your brother to have an idea of where stylistically he prefers his rieslings and then you can take it from there.
The other one I find really interesting is terroir. A few weekends ago I tasted through Prum’s 2016 Spatleses with the family. We did Wehlener, Graacher and Zeltinger. Everyone was really surprised at how different they all were.
In the order you list them. Dry vs sweet is polarizing - if someone doesn’t like one or the other, it’s a deal breaker. So start there, and then move to more nuanced aspects within the category of dry or sweet or both if he likes both.
When I introduce people to a proper tasting, I try to get wines from the same producer and same vintage in Kab - Auslese or GKA, and then maybe do a mini vertical of one of those wines.
Agree that sweetness comes first, everything else is secondary for a beginner. As far as explaining ripeness, I think the best way to do with Riesling is to probably go Wachau and use a Federspiel and Smaragd from the same vineyard. IMO, a beginner is most likely to notice the sweetness difference more than texture/body difference between Kabi and Spätlese.
Yes, that is a big risk. Moreover, dry or close-to-dry wines will almost always taste bad next to sweet wines. Though perhaps you could do a Trocken first, taking a little time to appreciate it, and then try a Halbtrocken/Feinherb.
I got so lucky. I started with a mixed case of Peter Lauer from Stephen Bitterolf when he was still at Crush. I got almost all of the aspects of Riesling from one producer. This was a real eye opener as I got dry, sweet (for Saar), feinherb, trocken bis feinherb, etc. I still have a few of those 2007 in my cellar! Maybe you could try something like this…
Hi Brian, I think you have a good list going. The only suggestion I can think of is to take a big step back. I know you’re very focused on German Riesling (and I totally understand), but comparing wines from Germany (ideally Mosel or Nahe), Austria (any major region, ideally high quality), and Alsace can be an incredibly useful learning experience. I think this is something well suited to beginners and experienced people, since so much can be learned by repeating with different producers, vintages, quality levels, etc. You could easily do dry wines from all 3 countries and some off-dry from Germany and Alsace. Also a stylistic comparison from Alsace is always interesting (Trimbach, Zind-Humbrecht, and Weinbach, for instance).
Thanks Doug. I was planning to start with Germany more because I have the bottles already and since I’m still trying to get a since of his palate preference for dry vs. sweet, etc. Regional or country comparison is on the list if we get that far.
Brian, if you and your brother in law are looking for a others to join, I would be interested in something like this. You may remember I started a thread on learning about Riesling at the beginning of the year and the forum was very helpful. I have drank a decent amount of Riesling this year, but not enough in a structured/comparative format (which would be much more informative)