Monday, December 20, 2010

IS THIS THE ANSWER?

The International Riesling Federation scale, as found on the back label of Dandelion Vineyard's 'dry' riesling.


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4 comments:

  1. RedDecember 20, 2010 at 11:49 PM

    The way I look at it can't hurt. If I was making riesling I would certainly use it.

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  2. joshgtvDecember 21, 2010 at 1:58 AM

    I like the idea. Whilst I prefer my riesling bone-dry, I do enjoy an off-dry and even a sweet riesling from time to time. I think that in Australia we're in danger of forgetting that there's anything but bone-dry. If this encourages a bit of variety and informed choice (as opposed to unwelcome surprise that there's any residual sugar), I think we all win.

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  3. Chris PlummerDecember 23, 2010 at 1:26 AM

    Red and joshgtv,

    As Australia starts pursuing different stylistic directions with riesling, I think something should be done for the benefit of the consumer, and so far this is the best I've seen (it's certainly better than labeling wines with a miscellaneous and unregulated set of prefixes). However, I would like to see something that could distinguish a riesling's dryness/sweetness levels without the consumer having to pick the bottle up and turn it around. The best notion put forward I've yet seen is the idea of different coloured bottles, similar to Germany, where there is the 'classic' green for our dry styles, blue for off-dry and brown for the sweeter styles.

    There's obviously some work to be done here, not the least of which is Australia proving it can consistently make high quality rieslings across a variety of sweetness levels...

    Cheers,
    Chris P

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  4. Chris PlummerDecember 30, 2010 at 3:31 AM

    Check the new front labels of Leo Buring's 'dry, medium-dry, medium-sweet or sweet' 2010 rieslings, accompanied by the ol' (or should that be new?) 4 dot scale. Interesting to note the Clare riesling is dry, but the Eden Valley riesling is medium-dry....

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