“Well,” you might be saying, “this doesn’t look like Riesling. It’s not in that tall skinny bottle!” It also doesn’t say “Kabinett” or “Spatlese”, terms folks are used to seeing on their Riesling bottles. This one? Qualtatswein. This classification translates to “Quality wine” and comes just before the more noted classes that speak of ripeness. Does this mean it’s a sub-standard wine? No. What it does mean is that classification only gets you so far, the real question is; how does the wine taste? Producers Terry Theise and Johannes Selbach thought this too. All they wanted was to make a regionally typical wine that wasn’t overly soft or sweet.

With aromas of honeysuckle and wild flowers, you initially think “sweet” and you get that for just a moment at the tip of the tongue, and then… the levee breaks and a surge of mouth-flooding acidity washes through leaving appley, slatey debris in it’s path. The 11% alcohol in this wine is an indicator of its crispness, you’ll often find that the lower the alcohol level, the higher the sugar level, with many sweeter style Rieslings hitting 8.5% or lower.

Food pairing? Ask not what this wine will pair well with, but what won’t it?