I have a number of German Rieslings, mostly Mosel’s of Kabinett, Spatlese and Auslese ripeness but also dry Riesling from the Pfalz. Apart from Germany, I have Alsace grand crus (NOT late harvest wines), dry Australian Riesling from Clare and Eden Valley to say nothing of Canadian Riesling Ice Wine. If I were to set up a tasting, I’m unsure how to proceed. Do I order wines by vintage, rising alcohol level, dry to sweet, etc. I am rather stumped about how to organize things so that the wines have a chance to show well and still demonstrate regional and style differences. Your thoughts would be appreciated.
Rick - I would recommend going from driest to sweetest. If you go the other way around, the dry wines can taste like battery acid after the spatlese and ausleses. After arranging by sweetness, go from older to younger within a dryness level.
Usually start with dry lighter wines (Kabinett), proceed with sweeter ones.
Only very mature wines can be taste slightly dryier that the designation would suggest … the eventual order can only be defined knowing all details.
Although, if you’re going to have a natural break in the tasting, such as a meal, then I’d be tempted to suggest holding the dry wines 'till after the meal. I say this because the transition from the dry to the off-dry is so drastic, it’s quite a shock to the palate, and (at least) the first wine of that transition is likely to suffer in its showing as a result. If there will be no such natural break, create one, and go with Brodie’s suggestion.
It would also be interesting to taste by country, and then by sweetness in the same country. But then it is difficult to go from the sweetest of the previous country to the driest of the next one… so if you have the possibility to have a break between the countries, it could be an interesting way to taste if there is a particular style for each country… if no break, from the driest to the sweetest, no doubt.
Florian