For the first decade of my work as a wine writer, I probably devoted more columns in The Washington Post to Riesling from Alsace than any other grape from any other region. I believed then–as I do now–that Riesling is the world’s greatest white wine grape variety, for a whole slew of reasons. However, the general wine consuming public never really took to Riesling, and I made it my business to tell them repeatedly that they were missing out on something fabulously delicious and food-friendly.
Riesling is grown and vinified in many places around the world, but from the mid-1994 until 2005, when I was writing for the Post before leaving to help launch Wine Review Online, Alsace was the primo place of origin for someone like me who was bent on hooking readers on Riesling. German renditions were marvelous but their labels and designations were dauntingly complicated and often 
too sweet for most consumers to use without specific pairing instructions. Austrian Rieslings were just becoming available. Australia made great Rieslings, but nobody here was interested in anything but Shiraz, so importers rarely brought the wines to our shores.
Washington and Oregon were just cranking up production, as were the Canadians in British Columbia and Ontario (all of which are now making wonderful Rieslings, along with Michigan and New York’s Finger Lakes). California Rieslings could be found fairly easily, but most of them were pretty boring, as there’s just too much sun and heat in most of the Golden State to make the sleek, zesty style that most effectively lures wine lovers into Riesling World.
That left Alsace, which made reasonably priced wines that were essentially dry, widely available, fairly priced, and terrific with all sorts of foods. This last virtue made them my “go-to” whites for Thanksgiving, and I never let a year go by without using that national occasion to preach the Alsace Riesling gospel.
But then, about a decade ago, things took multiple turns, and not in good directions for Rieslings from Alsace. Dry Rieslings started appearing in serious numbers from Germany, partly because of a change in drinking fashions in that nation, and partly due to climate change lowering acidity and undercutting the need to leave residual sugar in the wines to balance them. Weirdly, many winemakers in Alsace started leaving more sugar in their Rieslings even as the Germans were moving in the opposite direction, which was a bad move both commercially and stylistically, in my opinion. Austria started sending a lot of dry or barely off-dry renditions, and this is also when Rieslings from Washington, Oregon, Canada, New York and Australia got a lot better and a lot easier to find.
To be sure, exemplary producers like Trimbach never strayed from dry style Rieslings, nor did they ever miss a beat on quality. But the category of Alsace Riesling as a whole slipped badly, moving from a commanding position to just another choice among many, and a dicey choice at that, since the sweetness one would get from any particular bottle was no longer a predictable matter.
I honestly do not know how much this decline from “indispensable” to “also ran” actually hurt vintners’ bottom lines in Alsace, where tourism tends to prop everything up. But I do know that–somehow–the message got through, as Rieslings from Alsace have become notably drier and more consistently excellent in the past few years.
Among the houses that stands as a case in point regarding this positive development is Gustave Lorentz. Rieslings from this house were still rather unremarkable within the last decade, but tasting through the current releases a week ago showed marked improvement. The four wines below were all quite different from one another, yet all showed excellent quality in their style…and also in relation to their asking prices. If you haven’t tasted anything lately from this producer, do yourself a favor and circle back to them. Imported by Quintessential, they are widely available, at least by Riesling standards:
Gustave Lorentz Riesling “Réserve” 2019 ($25): This is very complex and classy for a straight Alsace AOC Riesling, showing good density but excellent freshness and balance. The fruit is showy and ripe, but the acidity provides very good linear energy. This combination makes for an exceptionally versatile wine that’s easily up to the challenge of roasted chicken or pork, but fresh enough to enjoy with delicate fin fish dishes. 92
Gustave Lorentz Riesling Vieilles Vignes “Evidence” 2018 ($25): This organic, old vines 
“Evidence” bottling is leaner and racier than the standard-issue “Réserve” bottling from this house, with a touch more aromatic complexity. I tasted the two side by side over the course of several hours, but couldn’t ultimately give one or the other a higher score, as the greater richness of the “Réserve” is so well balanced that it provides every bit as much pleasure if not quite the same level of “fine-ness.” If the two gave me a bit of trouble as a critic, they’ll give you two excellent options as a consumer. Very impressive. 92
Gustave Lorentz Grand Cru Kanzlerberg Riesling 2017 ($70): I haven’t tasted this wine for at least five vintages, which makes me very sad about the releases that I missed. It offers wonderfully complex aromas, with subtle floral topnotes and lovely lemon crème scents, followed by richer fruit flavors recalling tangerine above all, and then excellent minerality riding right alongside the fruit in the finish. The acidity is abundant but perfectly integrated with the fruit, and in overall terms, every aromatic and flavor note seems perfectly proportioned in this impressively harmonious wine. Truly, a thing of beauty. 94
Gustave Lorentz Grand Cru Altenberg de Bergheim Riesling Vieilles Vignes 2016 ($65): I opened this wine and tasted it alongside this house’s 2017 Grand Cru Kanzlerberg (as well as three other Lorentz Rieslings) for a long and very pleasant evening, and then again over several subsequent days while they were refrigerated but unsealed. Although I did not admire the overtly sweet "Burg” 2017 bottling (which isn’t imported to the USA), all of the others were exceptionally fine in their individuated ways. The Battle of the Grands Crus ended up in a dead heat, though the wines are utterly different. This release from the beautiful and formidable Altenberg de Bergheim vineyard is very rich and quite dramatic, with lots of palate weight as well as very expressive aromatics with a pleasant undertone of botrytis that fits nicely with the ripe profile of the fruit. This is certainly the fleshpot of the two, with the ’17 Kanzlerberg showing a much more cool, reserved, mineral character. The fact that this house could turn our two beauties with such different profiles is impressive. 94
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