June, for this writer, has been International Riesling Month. It started in Germany, on a tour of nearly all of the great Riesling regions in that country, especially the Mösel, the Rheingau, and the Nahe. (Side-trips to the Pfalz and Franken regions were 
included. I didn’t complain.) Just three weeks later, I traveled to Woodinville, WA, outside of Seattle, to attend an extraordinary conference of Riesling producers from all over the world, sponsored graciously by Mösel producer Ernst Loosen and his Washington partner, Ste. Michelle Wine Estates–which, to the surprise of everyone, is the largest single producer of Riesling in the world.
This immersion has been one of the most exhilarating in my professional life. I don’t think I’ve encountered a greater challenge, nor met with more rewards, than in these few weeks. I come away convinced that there is no more confounding, complex, and fascinating grape variety in existence. In fact, I’m going to go out on a limb and state that Riesling may surpass all of its fellow noble varieties in its complexity and boundless variety–it has obliged me to taste wine with a completely different perspective, to employ a new vocabulary and a new set of metaphorical tools, and ultimately, to adopt a new way of looking at wine.
Every tasting, whether in a German tasting room or a lineup of wines at the conference, was conducted the same way–the dry wines were tasted first, and then the fruity wines–the wines with increasing levels of residual sugar, which in Germany means Kabinett levels, spätlese levels, auslese levels and so on, including Beerenausleses and Trockenbeerenausleses, some of the sweetest, most concentrated wines in the world. This tasting routine, with its predictable continuum of sweetness, facilitated my observations and influenced the way I looked at the wines. Below I’m going to be speaking as much of my interaction with the wines as the wines themselves. (See, this is what Riesling does to you.) My main points fall under two broad categories: Coolness and Tension.
Coolness:
On the first day at Chateau Ste. Michelle we tasted about twenty dry Rieslings. That is Australia’s principal style, and the wines of the Eden and Clare Valleys pretty much dominated the category–though the austere wines coming out of the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia would certainly give the Aussies a run for their money. Austria rounds out that list of places leading with a dry style. As for Germany, a country with a deserved reputation for its sweet wines, their fresh and bracing Trockens were a great surprise; for its dry wines, German winemakers like to use the word ‘filigree,’ and it’s a fine evocation of their delicacy.
Rieslings are never completely dry–there is always a bit of residual sugar to offset the wine’s natural acidity. But the net effect of the acid, minerality, and overall dryness is a kind of coolness of tone, a coolness that I found myself musing about this tone often during those long flights.
These dry Rieslings can be electric on the palate. But like electricity, they are the opposite of sensuous: if anything, they’re a bit prickly. Their tactile pleasures–bracing acidity, a lacey texture–don’t exactly draw you in; rather they tend to keep you at a distance, preferring to be admired from behind a scrim of minerality. Confronted with these wines in succession, blind, was a bit like being in a garden filled with porcelain sculptures, each piece intricate, poised, classically rendered–and untouchable.
But that cool elegance seems to fill with life with the addition of fruit and residual sugar. Like blood rushing into a pale cheek, the wines seem to flush and warm; they become more and more approachable, more aromatically generous, at once more complex and more inviting. On the palate, wines at spätlese and auslese levels of sweetness finally become sensual, even voluptuous, especially with a few years of age, or when botrytis is involved. But none of this is true without tension.
Tension:
Tension in a wine is fairly abstract, and a bit hard to describe, but it’s impossible to look at Riesling without a sense of how it operates on the palate.
Tension is entirely a mouth experience; it’s a way of describing texture, how the wine feels and holds together in your mouth. Think of an imaginary line drawn between the wine’s acidity and its level of sugar. Ideally, you want enough acid to balance the wine’s sweetness–a thing that’s true of all wine, white wine especially. In Riesling, however, that line seems wonderfully elastic; it’s different, literally, for every wine you taste. Sometimes that line feels like it is very taut, sometimes relaxed and gentle. Each wine seems to have a slightly different length of wire they’re working with, and a different tension on the wire.
That tension can feel mysterious. Sometimes, for example, you can’t tell a wine is sweet because the acidity and minerality keep the wine in such taut suspension. Other wines, by releasing that tension, seem to provide the sort of sensuous release, like a muscle that’s been allowed to go slack after exertion. Still others feel more like a rollercoaster ride, where fruit flavors seem to plunge the wine into a great intensity of flavor, only to go into a hairpin turn and into the brick wall of the wine’s mineral backbone.
German winemakers, it’s clear, are masters of tension; they seem to dwell in this mysterious realm with more ease than any other winemakers in the world. The great wineries–like Maximin Grünhaüser, Joseph Leitz, J.J. Prüm, Robert Dönnhoff, Dr. Loosen, and Schlossgut Diel–seem to have some innate sense of calibration that allows them to amp up the acids when the sugars start to rise. The Germans speak of tension using the word ‘spiel’ or ‘play;’ and it’s a useful word in getting at the movement of Riesling in your mouth, the way it seems to be almost a sequence of events as you taste it, now sweet, now ample, now brisk and tangy.
To travel in Germany from region to region is to be reeducated about these nuances. And Riesling is a very precise instrument with which to measure the effects of soil, aspect, etc. upon a grape–more precise I think than any other white grape. As for the different regions, permit me to make some gross generalizations: the wines of the Mösel are perhaps the country’s most graceful, being as intricate, and as delicate, as a fine piece of lace. The Rieslings of the Rheingau seem considerably more focused, as if they’re built from slightly harder material; a reflection, perhaps, of the quartz in their soils. I spent mere hours in the Nahe, which seems to be the most diverse of the great Riesling regions in Germany, but some of that time was spent with Helmut Dönnhoff, whose Rieslings achieve almost unbelievable purity, seeming to hover, lightly tethered, over a robust mineral foundation, giving the wines an almost ethereal grace.
The Rest of the World in 500 Words:
What follows is a brief report on some of the other regions represented at Riesling Rendezvous:
Alsatian Rieslings were grossly underrepresented at the conference, but the wines of at least one producer, Albert Mann, stood out in any tasting they participated in for their pristine elegance backed with a rich mid-palate that gave the wines a few extra amps of power, providing a sharp contrast to the more delicate German versions.
The Rieslings of New York State are cleaner, purer and fresher than they’ve ever been, reflecting almost a confidence in winemaking and growing that I’ve never seen before. The wines are slightly drier than they’ve been over the years, (though the semi-dry Riesling from the state pioneer Konstantin Frank is still their best wine), there seems to have emerged a breed of younger winemakers like David Breeden at Sheldrake Point and Johannes Reinhart at Anthony Road who are making wines with greater precision than ever before.
Perhaps the biggest surprise of the conference, especially for the international guests, were the pretty Rieslings from northern Michigan, which had a generosity of fruit that combined with a round, fresh acidity–slightly more slack in tension with a bit more fat than the rest of the world, but unique all the same. Two producers, for me, stood out: Chateau Grand Traverse and Black Star Farms.
A pair of wineries from British Columbia, Tantalus and Quail’s Gate, presented Rieslings that seemed to come from the moon. None in the entire conference were more laser sharp, none had the edginess that these wines did. For some they appeared shrill, others found them thrilling and challenging; no one was neutral about them.
The conference marked my first occasion to taste the wines from Australia’s oldest Riesling producer, Pewsey Vale. Made by Louisa Rose, this is a classically dry style with a bit more amplitude than some of its austere neighbors in the Eden Valley. But I think my Oz favorite was the Frankland Estate Isolation Ridge bottling, from Western Australia’s Frankland River district, which showed an incredible raciness joined with an exotically spicy minerality.
Finally, on to the Northwest. Just as Washington’s Rieslings have begun to gain some traction among critics and in the market, Oregon’s have, too. Oregon will never produce the volume that Washington has, but the wines, with their tropical, white peach aromas and fulsome, ample textures offer a nice contrast. Rieslings from Chehalem, J. Christopher, and Brooks showed particularly well.
Among Washington wineries, Snoqualmie’s ‘Naked’ was nervy and bright; Poet’s Leap, a Washington joint venture between Allan Shoup and Armin Diel, was probably the richest, most voluptuous of all of the domestic wines tasted.
As for our hosts, Ernst Loosen and Chateau Ste. Michelle, the event was like a coming-out party for their joint venture Eroica, which held its own among a field of great wines. It was notably more forceful, more purely fruity than most of the German wines. That fruit driven quality–falling somewhere between ripe pear and white peach–seems like an imprint, an expression of terroir that Washington will come to define, as great Rieslings continue to emerge from the state.
Tantalus, Okanagan Valley (British Columbia, Canada) 
Riesling 2006 (not currently imported): In a field of impressive Rieslings, this wine stood out as one of the most radical and individual in three days of tastings. Saline and limey in its aroma, its flavors were unnervingly brisk and taut, with a mouthfeel that was almost icy, and a finish almost like a suspension of talclike minerals. 90
Chateau Ste. Michelle/Dr. Loosen (Columbia Valley, Washington) Riesling ‘Eroica’ 2005 ($20): A joint project from Ernst Loosen and Ste. Michelle, this has a pretty floral scent of pear and peach tree blossoms. Its flavors fall more squarely in the pear spectrum, with a fresh and juicy fruit profile and a zesty acidity that lifts the wine into an invigorating finish, where the flavors give way to subtle peach. The wine has a kabinett level of sweetness, but remains lifted and bright. 88
Chehalem, Willamette Valley (Oregon) Dry Riesling Reserve
2006 ($21): A generous wine that retains a healthy precision, the fruit aromas seem to fall between pear and white peach, ripe and full. Its flavors, more peach than pear on the palate, are broadly rendered, with an impressive amplitude, the mouthfeel rich and juicy, but constrained by a fine acidity. 90
Frankland Estate, Frankland River (Western Australia) Isolation Ridge Riesling 2005 ($20, the Australian Premium Wine Collection): From esteemed producer Judi Cullam, this estate has been making Riesling from this vineyard since 1991. This wine has classic Australian attributes: the lime zest scents, a brisk texture, a quinine minerality. But to these it adds a soil component that contributes depth and a spicy quality, giving the wine a generous midpalate and a bit of length. 91
Anthony Road, Finger Lakes (New York) Riesling Martini Reinhardt Selection 2005 ($24): Talk about tension. This wine leads with green apple scents that belie a richer, more substantial structural component. There’s quite a bit of structure on the palate, supporting ample and ripe pear and white peach flavors, rendered cleanly and precisely, with a finish that’s lithe and fresh. 90
J.J. Prüm, Mösel-Saar-Ruwer (Germany) Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Spatlese 2004 ($35, Rudi Wiest): A wine 
so pristine and poised it serves as an ideal example of what the Mösel can accomplish with Riesling. Its scents are creamy and mineral, a faint green apple and kaffir lime aroma with an overall sense of the wine’s freshness, along with a pronounced earthy scent that Prüm wines always carry from the lees. Its flavors are more profound and hard to describe; yes, round creamy apple and pear flavors, but the wine is more a composition, harmonized and complete, showing beguiling sweetness matched with a mineral acidity and a gentle tension that seems almost classically rendered. 93
Dönnhoff Estate, Nahe (Germany) Riesling 2005 ($22, Terry Theise Selection/Michael Skurnik): Helmut Dönnhoff’s wines are rightly praised for their poise, possessing an ethereal balance between delicate, floral and herbal scents and a grounded, quartz-like texture. This particular wine leads with scents of lemon verbena and green apple, but even in the aromas you can catch hints of the wine’s harmony and clean expression. The wine is fairly dry with a delicate fruit tone that belies a deeper mineral core structure, a minerality that builds through the duration of the palate for a finish of exquisite detail. 92