Riesling has become the ugly stepchild in American viticulture.  Back in the ‘60’s when the California wine industry began to develop a mass marketing presence, the large industrial style wineries such as Gallo, Paul Masson and Italian Swiss Colony, targeted supermarket shelves as a place to move their jug wines.  Lax California wine labeling regulations allowed these producers to label their soft, sweet white wines as “Rhine Wine,” 

Jug pricing (and soon after, box pricing) encouraged American consumption of the product, which often strayed from using genuine riesling varietal grapes, with a table variety, Thompson Seedless, filling in.  The resultant high headache quotient in the wines encouraged younger consumers to go back to beer. 

Smaller California wineries harvested vineyards planted with a true riesling varietal that produced high volume in the warm, mild climate.  However, the resultant wines were better suited to the “dessert” category with their high sugar content and low acid level.  As restaurants and retailers began to wave their marketing wands toward wine sophistication, California viticulturists responded with concentration on Chardonnay to produce a dry white wine.  By the start of the ‘70’s, a “glass of Chardonnay” became a popular phrase in the American cocktail culture, particularly with the distaff drinker.  Unfortunately, California winemakers universally styled their Chards by aging in oak to set the product apart from French white burgundies.  The latter are ideal and versatile food wines, while California Chardonnays carry too much wood flavor to blend with anything but very assertive foods, and are better consumed by themselves.

German heritage ignored

“Rhine Wine,” indeed!  The steep and rocky vineyard slopes along the Rhine and adjacent German and Alsatian rivers have produced classic rieslings for many centuries.  However, soil and climate bear no resemblance to California grape growing conditions.  Deutsch rieslings vary in sweetness, but all have a very high acid content that enables them to age gracefully and offsets any cloying sweetness. 

As an aside, we witnessed one of the most egregious marketing mistakes ever made when we visited the food floors of Berlin’s most prominent department store in the mid seventies.  There were prominent floor displays of Paul Masson Rhine Wine in carafe containers, promoting a lottery drawing for California vacations.  A chat with the wine buyer elicited his statement that “vacations were one thing, wine quality and mislabeling are another” and he was discontinuing the promotion.

Riesling was planted in Oregon vineyards as our industry developed at the end of the sixties.  It was an easy grape to grow here, but the wines produced pleased the unsophisticated consumer and turned more worldly types away with their tendency to sweetness without the benefit of the acidity transmitted by rocky slopes as in Germany. A majority of Oregon winemakers soon abandoned riesling production and moved to Chardonnay plantings.  However, the Oregon industry has now realized that northern Oregon growing conditions are ideal for the white ‘cousins’ of our popular Pinot Noir…Pinot Gris and Pinot Blanc.  These varietals as produced in Oregon are reaching a “world class” status impossible to achieve anywhere else outside a narrow region in Germany, Alsace and Switzerland (Italian Pinot Grigio is pale in comparison to the full, fruity flavor of our Pinot Gris).

Riesling respect reviving 

Pacific Northwest winemakers have not totally abandoned the riesling grape.  Taste German rieslings and your palate confirms that no white wine grape better expresses the unique conditions of its birthplace.  Here in our Northwest, a cool growing climate is endemic, while steep, rock-strewn slopes are scarce.  Rich Cushman, a true pioneer in winemaking in these parts, spent 1980 learning his craft in Germany.  This inspired him to find a riesling vineyard site on the banks of the Columbia Gorge, a geographical relative to the Rhine wine region.  While Cushman has worked as a consultant for several now prominent Oregon wineries, and has virtually been the sire of sparkling wine production here, he glories in the “Viento” label that graces his own vineyard production- small, but providing wine that has the bright apple flavor typical of German bottlings, with the bite of high acidity.

We’ll also recognize Argyle winery of Dundee for a dry riesling that is not Germanic, but is nicely balanced, with aromatic fruit flavor.  Likewise, another dry styling from Chehalem, from its more altitudinous vineyard slopes.  We’ve heard that fledgling winemaker Jay Somers is achieving riesling recognition with his efforts under the Halloran Vineyards label, squeezed from a small planting above Dundee.

We have found definite Germanic riesling produced by Idaho’s Ste Chapelle, now turning out some 10,000 cases from vineyards above 2,000 feet and laden with volcanic ash soil along the steep banks of the Snake River.

Good balance, high acidity , rich fruit aroma and crispness are qualities good riesling must provide.  Northwest winemakers aspiring to and achieving these qualities will definitely maintain the European achievments with this grape.
 
 

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