Think of the three white noble grapes. Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay come to mind immediately. But you may scratch your head before thinking Riesling. You are not alone. It is one of the three classic white varieties, growing the most in Germany, but found also in Austria, Alsace, Australia, New Zealand, USA, South Africa, Ukraine and Canada. But the varietal has not been very popular in India so far. I have reasons to believe that it will be soon be in fashion .

The German Riesling has been considered to produce aristocratic wine and was the noblest variety, some of the wines selling at prices even higher than the Bordeaux Chateaux wines a century ago. It was truly the grape for the kings, nobility and czars. Unfortunately, the quality started going down over time till it became identified as a mere component of Liebfraumilch, the sweet, mellow and insipid ‘concoction' made, at times, by adding sugar (chaptalisation). The avatar of the eighties has a minimum of 18 gms. of residual sugar, good enough to make it taste like a flat, cloying sweet wine.

Another reason why it has not yet made waves in India is because we find it a tad too sweet. This is a variety that can be extremely aromatic. It is the only varietal which makes a complete spectrum of wines from dry to sweet ice-wine to very sweet TBA (Trockenbeerenauslese) in Germany. Usually thriving in a colder climate, it can be mellow, flat and higher in alcohol in warmer areas. Germany being a relatively low volume wine producer, despite the 17 wine producing regions, has not been promoting wine outside its boundaries as aggressively as some of the New World countries. With no support from the government, the promotion takes a back seat. This is a critical component in the nascent Indian market. So the German Riesling has not made a mark here so far.

What is so special about this grape? Specially, in Indian context? Firstly, the grape lends itself to lively acidity at every level of sweetness. This makes the wine mature beautifully in the bottle for a decade or more without losing freshness. You can still find young, hundred –year old Rieslings. This sugar-acid balance makes this wine perfect for spicy Indian food. Acidity cuts into the fat and the sugar counters the chilies.

In a recent tastings of a couple of high quality labels from Mosel and Rheinhessen we found that the slightly sweeter versions (off-dry, Spaetlese and Auslese) could handle the spicy hot mutton curry, fish curry and butter chicken with aplomb by proper matching of the style of wine with the food and curry spices. Colour of the meat was less of an issue than the flavour of the spices. Of course, there is a limit to the hot spices it can handle. The extra hot south Indian style mutton curry we tried to match even with the sweet Auslese at Hotel Leela Mumbai could not tame the hot chilies.