One of the things that Riesling Downunder (the last three days in Melbourne) reminded me of is how Riesling has many faces. The diversity of Riesling beauty is something it takes some time and effort to appreciate well and it takes a lifetime to appreciate it fully. However, even just one of those Riesling faces is a many-facetted beauty that flashes one color then another depending upon where it stands and the way the light strikes it. All this beauty and paradox in a single wine would be impossible without the human dimension, that is without the people who make it, those who appreciate it (without them it might as well not exist!), and those who are intermediaries between these two groups, even if they are also that most banal of things, saleswomen and men, (just as winemakers are – we all have to sell something some time!)
The winemaker in these photographs is Theresa Breuer of the Georg Breuer estate in Rüdesheim/Rheingau, who I first met almost exactly 10 years ago when she was only 20. Yesterday her 2013 Berg Schlossberg was one of the high points of the International Dry Riesling Tasting at Riesling Downunder. Although this wine is still very much an infant it was all those things that the old books tell you a great Riesling should be: aromatic yet subtle, intense yet delicate, at once brightly charming and darkly mysterious. The winemaker as artist is certainly a cliché, and no new idea in my writing, however, this wine does in some way I can’t properly explain reflect it’s maker. And if I say that maybe I should therefore refer to hem as “she” and “her”?
