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and crisp to luscious and smoky. There’s an awful lot to adore in those tall, skinny, supermodelesque bottles of beloved Bacchus juice. “The first wine I tried that was inspirational and sort of took hold of my soul was the 1976 J.J. Prüm Wehlener Sonnenuhr Spatlese. It was relatively early in my wine drinking days—I was about 20— and my palate was still learning but also accepting of wines with residual sugar; but the fact was that the wine didn’t just stop there—the acid kicked in. And its length and purity of being stopped me and made me pay attention,” says sommelier and oneman Riesling rabblerouser Paul Grieco, who co-owns Hearth restaurant and the trio of quirky, inspiring wine bars: Terroir, Terroir Tribeca, and Terroir Murray Hill. “Twentyfive years later, I’m still remembering this wine. That says something.” Indeed it does. Rieslings, at their best and brightest, do tend to be intensely memorable because they hit multiple senses in an utterly eye-opening manner. The sight of their beautifully bright hue; the incredible aromatics of everything from flowers to minerals to succulent pear or ginger or citrus; their touch on your tongue, so zippy with laserlike acidity translating into something dancingly light or lusciously mouth-filling; and the flavors, which can range from austere to orchard-ripe. But that’s the secret— that elusive, much touted word in wine: balance. Yes, some styles of Riesling
have off-dry to downright sweet flavors. But most of the time, even with the sweetest of the sweet—what you might see on a German label as auslese or beerenauslese or that rollercoaster ride of a wine title trockenbeerenauslese— Rieslings still have this bright, linear current of electricity zipping through them, keeping the wines utterly buoyant and leaving your palate dry after all is swallowed and done. This grape has deep roots in Germany, but late-ripening Riesling has found itself a pretty good home in other parts of the world, too. “We revere Old World Riesling, of course, those from Germany and Austria and Alsace,” says
Grieco. “But I’m also stoked about the New World and those expressions. The Finger Lakes is a world-class venue to grow world-class Riesling. There’s the Niagara Peninsula, Australia, New Zealand. I’m overjoyed by it all. “Maybe my heart and soul will say, ‘Paul, don’t you want to go back to that ’76 Prüm?’ Maybe so, but as my Riesling world has expanded, I’m just as intrigued by [aged Rieslings] from Victoria [Australia]. Or the Cave Spring 2008 [from the Niagara Peninsula]. Or the Hermann Wiemer Late Harvest Riesling 2009—which is the greatest Riesling produced ever in North America. It’s extraordinary.” Truly, Riesling wears a different dress for every dance. The cool climate Rieslings of Germany’s fine Mosel region take on fresh apple-orchard aromas and the kind
How can you not drink a glass of Riesling, with its complexity and delicacy and balance and yumminess and sense of place, and not feel more in tune with yourself and those around you?”
Germany, Austria and Alsace are the Old World powerhouses of Riesling. But the New World is gaining ground.
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