The Judgment of NY: Germany v. Finger Lakes Riesling Dinner at Noreetuh

WINE TALK
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Wanted to type up a quick report on one of the more entertaining (and hopefully, illuminating) dinners that I’ve been to in quite some time - thanks in no small part to some luminaries on this board @Robert_Dentice

Last Thursday evening, we had the incredible opportunity to host a 'Finger Lakes vs. Germany" Riesling dinner at NYC’s Noreetuh. Jin had been a guest at the 2023 FLXcursion conference that I co-host and we had hit it off, and as our friendship grew so too did the FLX Rieslings on his list. Flash-forward to this past January, when Dominik Sona from Koehler-Ruprecht was in for dinner at Noreetuh ahead of Rieslingfeier and Jin blinded him on the Apollo’s Praise The Knoll Riesling from me, which he and his table were convinced must be a GG. This got Jin’s gears turning, he soon enlisted me, and slowly the plan came together to host a real blind tasting of German versus Finger Lakes Rieslings.

While I’m sure that versions of this probably happen from time to time, rarely do you have access to a top tier Riesling restaurant and Riesling mind to pull it off. Our goal was to be absolutely top-notch across the board. The best of the best from each region, 4 dry and 4 ‘non-dry’ from each, served blind and mingled together, and let’s see where the chips fall.

If you know Jin, you know he doesn’t do anything halfway. He selected a monstrous set of German wines, invited the best Riesling minds/drinkers in the city to attend, and took care of the incredible food. I hauled down 8 FLX wines and also invited Stuart Pigott, as he was arriving into town to come visit the FLX the following week already. Between myself, Jin, Robert, and Stuart we were able to give some great context for all the wines, and then the dinner began.

German Wines:
Peter Lauer, GG, Kupp, Mosel '23
Donnhoff GG, Hermannshohle, Nahe '23
Emrich-Schönleber, GG, Halenberg, Nahe '23
Keller, Riesling RR, Rheinhessen '22
Immich-Batterieberg, Enkircher Batterieberg, Mosel '23
Falkenstein, Spätlese Feinherb #4, Niedermenniger Herrenberg, Mosel '21
Julian Haart, Kabinett, Piesporter Goldtröpfchen, Mosel '23
Willi Schaefer, Spätlese, Graacher Himmelreich, Mosel '18

FLX Wines:
Dr. Frank ‘Margrit’ '24
Apollo’s Praise ‘The Knoll’ Lahoma Vineyard '23
Ravines Limestone Springs Vineyard '22
Hillock and Hobbs Estate Dry Riesling '21
Hermann J. Wiemer “Flower Day” '24
Hosmer Upper North Block '23
Apollo’s Praise ‘Kabinett’ '24
Kemmeter “San San” '16

The result? As an FLX producer, I’m obviously biased, but I think it is fair to say this: even before the wines were revealed at the end, the real takeaway was that the FLX Rieslings stood very comfortably in this rarefied air. There were one or two exceptions where a wine was obviously German or FLX, but the fact that the vast majority couldn’t be ID’d, and that the quality was very high and even throughout all 16 wines, was exactly what I could have hoped for.

Some additional observations that are worth making:

  • Wine Selection: 8 wines isn’t that many, especially when you have to do 4 Dry and 4 off-Dry. If you have quibbles with the selections, I wouldn’t blame you, but I can assure you no end of back-and-forth went into it between Jin and Stuart on the German end, and many sleepless weeks for me on the FLX end. I wanted to do my region proud, and that was actually more stressful than having to just present my own wines in this sort of context.
  • The German Bench: It needs to be said that, while I probably had another ~10-15 producers I could have chosen from for this tasting at a similar caliber, it is fair to point out just how many different German producers could have been poured. As I said in my opening remarks, there is notably more Cabernet Sauvignon planted in Germany than there is Riesling in all of the Finger Lakes. So while the top end of the Finger Lakes is now justifiably in the same conversation, we are in no way pretending that Germany isn’t the heavyweight champion (and always will be).
  • Finger Lakes Value: To remain even handed, it also has to be said that the Finger Lakes wines are at notably competitive price points. I think there are still impressions from 10+ years ago that Finger Lakes wines might deliver on quality, but not on value. In this line-up, the German wines would generally MSRP at $60-$100, while the FLX wines ranged from $18-$40 (with “The Knoll” being the single outlier at $65, which we have intentionally done to argue that the prestige FLX wines deserve those prices). I’m not saying we should charge more, to be clear, but I do think this once-weakness for the FLX is now actually one of our strong suits.

The real winner, other than all of us in attendance, was of course Riesling. Whether a German wine fan or a Finger Lakes producer, we all love Riesling and want more people to enjoy the wines and talk about them. To come together in person to be social and debate them. That is what makes wine so great, and such a human connector.

I’m incredibly grateful to Jin for hosting this dinner and taking a chance on us. Thank you to the FLX wineries that trusted me to represent their wines at such a high stakes tasting, that was particularly humbling. And thank you especially to folks like Stuart and Robert who were interested in coming out, took this so even-handedly, and provided such great perspective on the evolution of where they’ve seen FLX wines come from. We’re all better for it, to say the least.

P.S. My favorite photo from the end of the night!

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This was so exciting to hear about and I’m glad it was an informative experience! Now someone just needs to get distributors and retailers on board so we can reliably get FLX wines outside of the Northeast. :face_holding_back_tears:

I’m also curious what you, Kelby, and other producers in the region think about producing wines that are “indistinguishable” from their German counterparts compared to developing a unique identity for the region. Obviously it’s an amazing benchmark to aim for, but I think it’s just as high of a compliment, if not higher, if FLX wines could be identified in a blind tasting like this (in a positive way of course).

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Sounds like an awesome tasting! Was there a consensus WOTN?

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It was an exciting tasting. And the Finger Lakes more than held their own. I was particularly impressed with the Apollo’s Praise and Kemmeter. I am overdue to visit the Finger Lakes.

Thank you to Kelby and Jin for all of the hard work that went into the evening.

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This is a great question! I would say that there is definitely a FLX character (and gone are the days when we would try to make German wines here) - but in this tasting there was probably an expectation that the two would be distinguishable by quality. I’m less surprised they were hard to tease apart organoleptically, however, as I’ve gone to many a blind tasting where trying to tease apart German v Alsace v Austria ends up being a coin flip as well.

For @Dan-S I think there wasn’t a clear or consensus WOTN. Technically the Willi-Schaefer ended up at the top, but not by any notable margin. Rather, I think just about every person in attendance had different wines that stood out, based on the styles that spoke to them.

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On the printed list, which you posted on Instagram, there’s a 2022 Krettnacher Euchariusberg Kabinett AP 8 (Gisela) instead of a 2021 Niedermenniger Herrenberg Kabinett feinherb AP 4 (Onkel Peter). Which one was it?

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My apologies, yes, it ended up being the 2022 Krettnacher Euchariusberg Kabinett AP 8 - Jin opened up two bottles of the AP 4 and found them to be not showing well, so he switched gears.

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Great Idea, congrats on the successful event. Very Jealous.

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Count me in for any future tastings like this!

I will need to hit you up next time we come up. We try to make an annual trip, and just adore what is going on up there. We always bring the truck as I easily bring back 8-10 cases every trip. I’ve been growing more impressed with each passing year of what is going on beyond Riesling too.

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@Kevin.Moses brought an Apollo’s Praise Kabinett to one of our EBRS dinners and i was shocked how delicious it was. Instant fan!

Edit: Had to fix spelling of Apollo. All due respect! :pray::clinking_glasses:

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Please do hit us up! You can easily find me here or at kelby@apollospraise.

And thanks for that report @Colby_Scott - and for bringing the wine @Kevin.Moses - the Kabinett has been our sleeper hit thus far. It does remarkably well with folks who understand the style, and has steadily been finding its way to them!

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No problem. Thanks for the clarification. I’m sorry to hear that two bottles of the 2021 AP 4 were off. Jin sent me a message that one had cork. I heard that the 2022 AP 8 showed very well in the lineup—not bad considering that most of the other German Rieslings were from the higher-rated 2023 vintage.

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And also kudos to Jin, and the reason he was the right venue for this, that he knows the wines well enough and looks out for them that he makes sure not to send out bottles that aren’t shining.

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Well done and hats off to you! I drink more Riesling than any other white grape by a large margin, and yet <1% of that is from the Finger Lakes. Sounds like I need to try harder and invest the time to discover these wines. Thanks for advocating for your region Kelby!

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What a great a event, would love to attend if you do it again. This tasting will help motivate me to visit the Finger Lakes this fall.

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Here’s the Grape Collective writeup and video!

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I have also been finding surprisingly good quality from the Finger Lakes over the past 2 to 3 years. Previously, telling them apart from good producers in Germany was very easy based on quality alone, as you mentioned. I am very happy to say that’s no longer the case. Finger Lakes Riesling has such a bright future that I’m excited to see!

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And I think it is also worth pointing out that the increase in quality isn’t vintage driven either; the top placing FLX wine actually came from what most of us would charitably call the worst vintage ever in the region: yet the quality can still be there.

For @Dan_A and others who have shared the sentiment of wishing to attend a similar event in the future, I can certainly foresee doing another iteration next year. We were actually musing about doing it with all Dry Rieslings next time, which would be no trouble to organize given the number of FLX producers who only make Dry styles (which gave me no end of fits and starts for trying to squeeze as many people in as possible).

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Kemmeter is quite good.

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Curious, why this wine from Ravines? Argetsinger is top of the stable there.

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