Contributor: Tersina Shieh

Riesling is a difficult grape to understand and appreciate. It has many faces, from sparkling (Sekt from Germany), and dry (i.e. not sweet) to sweet made from botrytis noble rot grapes or grapes frozen at -8ºC, and with all kinds of sweetness in between. The common characteristics of all Rieslings are high acidity and relatively low alcohol.

Apart from the sweet noble rot and ice wine Rieslings, where consumers know that the wines are, well, sweet, many people are confused and put off by the off dry/medium style Rieslings from Germany. I have to confess this was the reason I didn’t go near Riesling when I first explored wine. The trick, instead of focusing on the sweetness, is to think about the balance between sweetness, acidity, alcohol and fruit. A well-made medium dry Riesling is not cloying like syrup, but concentrated and fruity with a nicely balanced sweetness setting against the acidity. It can go well with a variety of savory dishes from steamed dumplings (蒸餃子) to Kung Pao chicken (宮保雞丁) and sweet and sour prawns (咕嚕蝦球).

A couple of useful tips on sweetness when you buy German Riesling: Kabinett, Spätlese and Auslese are categorized according to the sugar level at the time of harvest. They can all be either dry or medium. You need to interpret this with reference to the alcohol level. For example, a Kabinett with 11% alcohol will be dry while one with 8% alcohol will be semi-dry. Similarly, a dry Spätlese has about 12-13% alcohol and a dry Auslese has about 13-13.5%.

Here are a few useful German - English translations to help you read the labels:

• Trocken: Dry. Any wine with this word will have less than 9g/l residual sugar.
• Halbtrocken: Off-dry, usually 9-18g/l residual sugar.
• Feinherb: Half-dry, an unregulated designation, usually sweeter than halbtrocken, in the range of 12-40g/l residual sugar.
• Kabinett: Made from fully ripened grapes and are usually made in a light style. It goes well with mildly spicy Thai food or fried food.
• Spätlese: Literally means late harvest. Fleshy and intensely flavored with highly detectable aromas. It goes well with intense-flavored food such as Northern Chinese or Japanese BBQ.
• Auslese: The grapes are hand-picked from selected very ripe bunches. Honeyed and bold, it goes well with intense-flavored food such as Peking duck or Indian cuisine.
• Eiswein (ice wine): Made from grapes that have been frozen while still on the vine, and then pressed to produce a smaller amount of concentrated and very sweet wine.
• Beerenauslese/BA: The grapes are individually picked. Typically very sweet and rich, and is perfect to serve as sweet wine after dinner.
• Trockenbeerenauslese/TBA: The grapes are individually picked and shriveled to the point of appearing like a raisin, resulting in very sweet and intensely rich flavor wine. These wines are rare and expensive due to the labor-intensive method of production.

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A marketer turned winemaker, Tersina's mission is to promote a stronger wine culture in Hong Kong and China, explaining wine in a no-nonsense way.

This post was created by a Jubee contributor. Views represented are not affiliated with Jubee. Photo by Ingeborg Schmidtke.