I recently incurred the disapproval of Stuart Pigott over a quote I’d given to Eric Asimov of the New York Times. Eric mentioned to me his disappointment over some dry German Rieslings his panel had tasted, thinking perhaps he’d find me saying “I told you so,” or words to that effect. In fact, I felt wistful, and wished the wines had shown better. What I said to Eric echoed what I’ve written in my catalogues; I have little issue with the wines themselves, or with quite a lot of them, but I have found them to be an “invasive” species, and it constituted “a dubious example of this country’s temptation to do things in large implacable blocs.”

So Stuart had at me.

My metaphor “invasive species” is, I admit, imprecise, but Stuart’s a smart guy and I can’t be sure why he elected to read it literally. In any case, he did, and set about to instruct or remind me that German dry Rieslings existed historically, which I already knew. The larger point is that this species seems to wish to conquer all the floras in its path.

Thus ensued a lively back-channel dialogue amongst Stuart, David Schildknecht, Lars Carlberg, and myself, salient points from which I’ll share here. In brief, both Stuart and Lars see a different picture than I’ve seen, finding the modern German wine drinker within Germany to be far more flexible in his/her tastes than I suppose and have reported.

I want any reader to know that I have very great regard for Stuart Pigott, and am also personally grateful to him for having helped me when I was just discovering Austrian wine, thanks to his having shared some from his cellar with me back in March 1992. While this recent exchange hasn’t shown him at his best, there’s a remarkably deep body of work that does, and respect must be paid. During the writing of these many backs-and-forths, Stuart himself was otherwise occupied with a hectic schedule of tasting and blogging—in part about me—and was unable to fully engage. This largely accounts for the relative paucity of his input in what follows. To experience him more deeply, I refer you to his blog.

Finally, after his challenge to me, I sent him a couple of comments, which he was gentleman enough to publish [click here, too], and for this I am grateful. He needn’t have done it. He can write anything he wants on his blog!

Pigott has already excerpted from emails I wrote him, and, in that spirit, I feel I can do the same, as we were apparently all “on the record.” However, I have sent this document to David and Lars prior to publishing to ensure they are content with how I have used their words.

I regret the relative paucity of text from Lars, who has been a very fine mensch throughout our dialogue, albeit we disagree vigorously. I imagine he will post his own version of our exchanges in a reply below, which of course will emphasize different things than I’m doing here.

What follows are just some of the various email exchanges, which have been edited and shortened for clarity. The symposium begins with my very first comment to Stuart’s blog challenge.

Terry: To anyone reading this—and I hope Stuart chooses to make it public—I stand unequivocally by every word I said. They reflect conclusions I have drawn inexorably from my experience. I could not have concluded otherwise.

And I hope I am wrong. Indeed I hope very much I am wrong, because I would far rather live in the world Stuart experiences than in the one I do. But sadly, hoping and yearning will not bring this world about. Thus while my conclusions are categorical, they are not immutable. Stuart and I do the very same thing; we infer conclusions from the empirical business of living. His "sample field" leads him hither and my sample field leads me thither (I always wanted to find a way to use that word…).

Thus I don't think it would be useful to engage in dueling anecdotes. Stuart has his, I have mine, and debates such as these seldom grow corn. Nor do I feel it is especially germane to argue about "tradition" in terms of whether the typical, that is to say, sweet Rieslings of the 1970s and 1980s were traditional or aberrant. As Stuart says, it is a question of perspective, and tradition tends to be a moving target, depending on how far back you look and where you stand while you're looking. I myself don't care whether that style is defined as "traditional." It is valid, at least in its best iterations, and it ought not be permitted to disappear.

I am encouraged by the attitudes Stuart reports amongst the young drinkers he encounters. I hope to meet a few of them myself some day. But isn't it worth asking what these people are actually exposed to? In nearly all of the Pfalz and Rheinhessen—to cite just two regions—I'm not sure how one can be an ecumenical drinker when there's almost nothing but dry wines from which to choose! Perhaps I'm a habitué of the wrong restaurants and tasting rooms, or else just the unluckiest guy around.

David: On the subject of "invasive species," I think what's misleading about this metaphor is that although not explicitly part of the expression in question's meaning, "invasive species" is in practice used almost exclusively for non-native species. And I'm sure Terry isn't trying to maintain the absurd position that dry Riesling is not native to Germany (even though one's German interlocutors—you very much included on this occasion, Stuart - will often act as though someone defending the role and qualities of residually sweet Riesling must perforce be ignorant of German wine history and the role of sterile filtration, refrigeration chambers, and so on.). Beyond that, I think this metaphor is an apt goad. Many invasive species are useful (which is how some of them got introduced) and/or lovely; but the problem is that they come to dominate an ecosystem and threaten the existence of other long-standing lovely and/or useful resident species.

Stuart—besides taking unwarranted umbrage at what he interpreted as a disrespectful accusation by Terry of the entire German People—got carried away by his vision of Germany's youth and its openness. That is a heartening vision and fortunately one with considerable evidential support (as I have found in my annual visits to Germany—where I studied as a young man—and in following the German press). But the question at issue—at least, the question that clearly concerned Terry and that concerns me—is whether or to what extent such openness is illustrated by how Germans relate to a range of residual sugar and finished alcohol in Riesling or by the attitudes of German Riesling growers and their collective organizations. And I feel sadly compelled to answer: “not much.”

The issue of interest to Terry and to me both professionally and as a matter of deep personal attachment concerns the future of German Riesling wine and its perception and reception inside Germany. Terry's claim quoted by Eric looks extreme or even wrong-headed only insofar as generalizations about national character are inherently risky and, more importantly, insofar as one assumes that he meant to extrapolate from the German character beyond the context of addressing Riesling and its styles. He did nothing to encourage such an assumption.

When it comes to matters of Riesling style, Terry believes—as do I—that a rigid, black-and-white mentality (what I would call the mentality of Konsequentheit) tends to dominate the most prestigious German wine growers’ association [VDP] and the overwhelming majority of its Riesling growers outside the Mosel region; as well as among the movers and shakers of German gastronomy and a size-able share of Germans who write about wine.

There are many signs of stylistic restrictiveness or schizoid extremity in the lists as well as attitudes of Germany's Riesling growers and restaurants; and if you challenge these tendencies or the presuppositions underlying them, you will get an earful of purported justifications—many of which I have tried to address in detail in my writings—that simply don't make sense unless one discounts the autonomy of aesthetic judgment and ignores the evidence of one's senses.

Among the most prominent of these signs of restrictive prejudice and schizoid behavior are:

the notion that what counted as well-balanced Riesling for generations is somehow totally unthinkable today: halbtrocken, for example, is "neither fish nor fowl"—whatever that's supposed to mean, but presumably insufficiently konsequent—and therefore a horror, indeed the notion "if dry then legally trocken and if sweet then really sweet" has almost become gospel; and wines of less than 12 percent potential alcohol have almost ceased to exist at most German Riesling-growing addresses

that non-trocken Riesling is suitable with at most a tiny range of cuisine, most of it "oriental"

that the sole functions of residual sugar in Riesling are to convey a sweet taste and/or to cover-up defects (though it must be pointed out that this utterly wrong-headed belief threatens to become gospel among precisely the youth and avant-garde of Champagne, too)

that due to its structure and the terroirs Riesling inhabits, levels of alcohol needn't concern a German Riesling grower, and if he or she focuses on achieving low yields and complete fermentation all will (aesthetically speaking) be well.

Stuart: I do think, however, that one absolutely crucial point is the question of perspective. Seen from within Germany the predominance of dry wines (which is certainly no new phenomenon in many regions) does not feel at all narrow-minded. There is not the slightest hint of anything fascistic about this, indeed quite the opposite. It is all about how the market reacts to the wines and the last years it did so in a very relaxed way. In contrast, the way the VDP behaves may often be very unrelaxed, partly because of that very German anxiety to be seen to do the "right" thing (they are terrified of you guys!) but also due to the fact that its leaders are older than the segment of the wine market which is dynamic. They are thereby giving a very distorted picture of what is going on the ground, without wanting to do so.

If Terry thinks Rheinhessen with its warm climate (accentuated by climate change) and often rather chalky soils needs to turn "back" to the sweet Spätlese, I think he's barking up entirely the wrong tree and missing the whole point of what has changed, particularly since the turn of the century.

Terry: Stuart, I do not feel the Rheinhessen needs to "turn back to the sweet Spätlese," and I'll grant you that you must have been in a hurry, because you're not that obtuse. I think that the estate of Geil, in Bechtheim, whom I represent, is precisely what I'm happiest to see: some dry wines, some barely off-dry wines, some properly balanced "sweet" wines—no grotesque 100-plus-grams-of-sugar-per-liter monsters at this address—and everything coexists peacefully and all the wines play-well-with-others. (And in truth, the portfolio of Rheinhessen's most prestigious calcaire [limestone] grower, Klaus Peter Keller, pretty much fits that description as well—though few follow his lead.) Alas, and typically, the domestic market buys nothing but the dry wines. I buy them also, and happily, as part of a balanced assortment in a range of styles—also known as the genius of Riesling.

I do not believe—climate change notwithstanding—that Riesling has any stylistic manifest destiny except to always demonstrate its giddy brilliance in producing beautiful wines across a range of possible residual sugars. If I actually were the caricature you (hurriedly) drew, then I would argue that my insistence that all Rheinhessen Rieslings must be sweet is no more prima-facie ridiculous than your insistence they must all be dry. What I find most ominous in this entire business is this notion they must always be anything.

David: A bipolar attitude toward residual sugar on the part of German Riesling growers is simply one among many influential fashions or ideologies in wine that some of us think stylistically misguided, and it is a fashion peculiar to Germany only to the extent that Riesling from Germany represents one of the very few examples—and surely the most dramatic—of a cépage [grape variety] and place that issue in profoundly delicious wines across a huge range of residual sugar, and whose wines can in particular be catalyzed to extraordinary expressiveness by small increments of residual sugar.

Received opinion among German growers and taste trendsetters today is that the reason they return again and again to (are perhaps fixated on) the issue of legal dryness is that they have to expunge the last remnants of a nightmarish post-war period of sugar debauchery and degradation of Riesling by residual sugar. I believe that this perspective is askew. The reason that dryness must be an issue with German Riesling is not because of the excesses of the past—if you want to taste truly excessive levels of residual sugar in German Riesling, it's the previously unprecedented "100-plus-gram" Spätlesen and the nobly sweet Rieslings being produced nowadays to which you should turn!—but because of a long history demonstrating the unique potential of Germany's Rieslings to come to glorious expression under the influence of residual sugar, even when it's just one or two dozen grams. For most grapes and places, dryness is not an issue because long experience has shown that the wines need to be dry to be maximally expressive and aesthetically satisfying. With German Riesling, legal dryness is just one successful mode along a continuum.

Terry: I currently offer 66 trocken wines, excluding reds and rosés. If you add in the halbtrocken/feinherb segment it's nearly 40 percent of my offerings. I'm glad they have their place. They deserve a place; just not the only place.

Lars: A number of producers (Weiser-Künstler, Vollenweider, Günther Steinmetz) have complained to me, too, about the domestic market only wanting dry wines. I know that most growers, who are not named Egon Müller or Joh. Jos. Prüm, can't sell much of their sweet wines here.

Terry: Again, 99% of the growers I know south [mostly east, though] of the Mosel continue to tell me they can sell nothing but dry wines domestically. And if they have two dry wines, one with 1 gram of sugar per liter and the other with 1.8 grams, they cannot sell the "sweeter" wine! Even the Moselaners tell me the domestic demand for trocken is growing like kudzu.

Lars: It's true that most producers don't have a market for sweeter wines in Germany. For example, I've sat at Willi Schaefer and remember a private German client asking for dry Riesling and then leaving. Yet I've so many German friends who are just the opposite.

What's irksome, however, is that a picture is painted that most Germans only want to drink dry Riesling. I think this is an unfair depiction, even though there's some truth to this. I agree, too, with David that German Rieslings in the range between 10 and 40 grams of residual sugar per liter have been sadly overlooked, especially by the VDP. Instead, many winemakers feel that the wines have to be either legally trocken (Trockenheit) or they make them overly sweet. The rising residual sugar, much like the rising alcohol for dry wines, has partly to do with climate change as well.

Terry: Sometimes, yes, but less often than one supposes. Sure, if you pick at 100º Oechsle and you intend to make a wine with residual sugar, you'll need more than your grandfather did when he picked at 85º. But we do see, as David says and as I experience far too often, the "token" sweet wine that's absurdly oversweet, as if the grower is saying "Well cupcake, if you like sweet wine then here's something just for you!" It's also a pernicious form of propaganda, because "normal" drinkers will taste such a wine and recoil—and assume they hate "sweet wine." Whereas what they hate is cloying treacle, which all of us hate.

Even if I agree (as I mostly do) that many of the sweet wines made in the 1970s and early 1980s were cloying, I'd say the inverse is also true—most of the dry wines made from the late 1970s through and including the early 1980s were shrill and sour. What does this demonstrate? Only that lazy or untalented growers make yucky wine in whatever is the prevailing style of the moment. To say, as I paraphrase you to mean, that "We needed these dry wines because some of the sweet wines were sugar-water" is not, in my opinion, a useful point of view. I'd respond that we didn't need the ocean of repugnant, bitterly unbalanced dry wines that prevailed until very recently under any circumstances. What we need is to stop obsessing over sugar as-such and to become pragmatic and broad-minded in our approaches to Riesling. Because its signal genius is to be successful across a wide continuum of sweetnesses, all of which should be appreciated.

David: My having, like Stuart, authored over the years thousands of tasting notes in praise of specific trocken German Rieslings—like the fact that Terry offers annually in his import portfolio dozens of them—suffices to make clear that neither he nor I somehow oppose, on principle, Riesling of under 10 grams residual sugar. Indeed, the very notion seems ludicrous when put that way, which should have—indeed, apparently did—prompt Stuart to recognize that pretense to the contrary could at best be used to stuff hollow arguments or feed flames of resentment, which I was dismayed to discover is just what he did.

Stuart: I fear you still don't get the point I'm trying to make. It seems to me that you [Terry] are approaching the changes there have been (and which continues apace) in Germany with a fundamentally negative attitude, or at the least an attitude that is blinding you to a lot of what is happening. In your role as a wine importer, it's your privilege to do what you want at your own risk. However, a quote in The New York Times that goes beyond comment about the wines of Germany and makes serious criticisms of national character that strike me as outdated cannot go unchallenged. It seems to me that you and others are projecting a bunch of stuff onto Germany that is no longer there and grossly exaggerating other things that are there. That is not a joke. How would you like it if I starting making sweeping assertions about the American national character on the basis of the big California Chardonnay brands and I did so in a major German newspaper or on a TV chat show? You'd say that I was projecting a bunch of stuff onto America and grossly exaggerating the importance of those brands.

Terry: I am not approaching this with a negative attitude; I have developed a certain pique based on what I actually see and hear. Year after year, I yearn to glean some reason to hope it is changing; on the contrary, it appears to be getting worse. If and when things seem to improve, I am the first to applaud, as I did when the VDP began developing the concept of Erste Lage detached from the residual sugar of the wines. I am publicly in favor of vineyard classifications—an area of no small disagreement between David and me, by the way.

Your rhetorical question about Cal-Chards is curious. I'd have no objection whatsoever if you made "sweeping assertions about the American national character on the basis of the big California Chardonnay brands." Nor would I care where you did it. I would enjoy the many grains of truth such an assertion would contain. Maybe this is why we don't seem to understand each other.

Stuart: [D]ry wines—that is, wines where the must ferments through instead of this process being stopped—is "an invasive species" in Germany? I think that for centuries this is what happened and the exceptions to this rule were mostly few and far between (in the best vintages more common, but probably seldom the norm even then). A new culture of dry wines has developed in Germany over several decades (I missed the very beginning). It has its strengths and weaknesses, but it is a culture, which I think deserves to be treated as such.

Terry: I take no issue with the wines themselves, or, at least, with many of them. I take issue with what looks like an either/or equation that does a serious disservice to Riesling's capacity to shine in a multitude of idioms. I don't know how this is inconsistent with treating the dry style as a "culture." The questions are, what is the nature of this culture? To me, at times, it seems like more of a cult than a culture.

I do not, by the way, accept the charge that I have impugned the "German national character." I drew attention to a particular aspect of it as a possible explanation for the phenomena I was observing. You read the rest in, and I hope you're not fanning the flames amongst those you describe as "shocked" by those words—words which I have spoken directly to a lot of German growers I buy wine from, and who laughed it off or even ruefully agreed.

However, to the extent I appear to have insulted you, I regret it and didn't intend it. And I repeat, I hope you are right, and if so I'll have no trouble eating my words. Meanwhile, I'm just not seeing it, and what I am seeing doesn't look at all healthy.

David: As I have repeatedly attempted to frame this issue: When it comes to matters of alcohol and residual sugar, German Riesling growers need to shed a long-standing, self-congratulatory fixation—rooted, perhaps, in an unwarranted inferiority complex—with what “we, too” can accomplish in bottle (or for that matter, in vineyard classification ;- ) and focus attention on what “only we” can, which includes singularly profound, versatile, and age-worthy wines at levels of residual sugar from 10 grams upwards, as well as dry-tasting wines well-under 12 percent alcohol.

What's more, the so-called "arguments" from purported Konsequentheit offered me by growers don't even consider the matter of taste. I never hear: "Oh David, if you can possibly stomach the awful results of letting a Riesling rise to 15, 20, or 25 grams of residual sugar, I can't argue with your taste; but I think such wines taste terrible...unless maybe they get up to 50 or 60 grams." Not once. Instead, what I hear are the likes of this:

"Such wines are neither fish nor fowl." (And your point would be...?)

"I don't engage in half-measures." (If you despise any deviation from that principle, you must be a terror to live with. By the way, do you vote NDP or Die Linke?)

"In don't want to make wines that require crutches. Residual sugar simply covers up flaws." (So do paint and plaster. Shall we take a look at our house? And I guess Terry's barbaric beard must offend you, too.)

"Our terroir is too calcaire." (Ever taste one of those awful off-dry Rieslings from Keller? Or a [Vouvray] demi-sec from Foreau or Huet?)

"There has to be a limit somewhere, and if you go over 10 grams the next thing it'll be 15, and then..." (And then the wine will actually taste sweet? Which would be horrible? But let's suppose for the sake of argument that it would be. Have you ever actually sat in on a bench trial for residual sugar? Do you imagine that sweetness in wine is solely a function of residual sugar—or even of residual sugar and acidity? Do you imagine that the sole effect of residual sugar in wine is to make it taste sweet? Are you imagining a linear progression of grams per liter and perceived sweetness?)

"Look, I'm not against sweet wine, but then it has to be really—consequentially—sweet." (So you never considered backing-off of 100 grams of residual sugar in your Auslese just to see what would come of it?)

...and on and on.

The fact that otherwise reasonable people, not to mention talented vintners can imagine that there's some force to "arguments" like the above—just like the defensive over-reaction that often results when one suggests that the unique potential of judicious residual sugar in German Riesling is nowadays being overlooked and marginalized—are, I think, simply signs that many, many German growers and German taste trend-setters are singularly obsessed with dryness and issues of residual sugar.

This is all I ask of the German wine establishment and its growers: Do what you like; what sells; what tastes good to you. And if you refuse to even consider as part of your self-expression and of what you offer your customers the proven opportunities afforded by residual sugar and/or lower alcohol in German Riesling—if you are insufficiently curious to explore them—then at least don't prejudice wine lovers and your fellow growers against them by means of ludicrously empty "arguments"; by deriding those of us who insist such wines are uniquely beautiful; and by putting up road blocks to deter other growers from exploring (such as refusing to allow the name of a "grand cru" to be "tainted" by low-alcohol or insisting that Riesling's highest expression of terroir "must" take place at under 10 grams of sugar—as though Riesling's reputation will be enhanced if we insist on narrowing the parameters of alcohol and residual sugar within which we claim it can achieve greatness).

Terry: There's a curious implication behind something you wrote me elsewhere, Lars, that "before 1971, the terms ‘trocken’ and ‘halbtrocken’ didn't even exist." Because if they didn't exist, how was the purchaser supposed to know whether the wine had zero sweetness, or a little, or more than a little? I assume if it had a lot, the label would indicate by using "Spätlese" and "Auslese," but what of the others? Did those drinkers not care? That, to me, would be awfully sensible! The few times I myself attend to the question are when I'm choosing wine for my meal, when certain things ought ideally to align. Like when Stephen Colbert says "I don't see race," I myself don't "see" sugar; I see harmony, balance, deliciousness. I "see" sugar only when it's either excessive or insufficient, which is another way of saying I see disharmony as well as harmony.

I admire your (Lars’s) interest in history, and your scholarship is noteworthy. That said, and said sincerely, I'm not sure how it bears on the current situation. Things change for a variety of reasons, and we are where we are. Some of Stuart's misreading of my initial words had to do with an overly literal interpretation of my metaphor "invasive species." The metaphor is a little blurry, I know, because a true invasive species comes from outside, whereas the dry-Riesling "species" is home-grown, and has some of its roots in earlier times. Still, it is enacting a disturbing hegemony in many/most regions, and all the arguments in the world that adduce "tradition"—itself a slippery notion—won't change today's melancholy spectacle. The fact that until recently (in historical terms) all Champagne used to be sweet would never be used to justify some fantastic return to tradition!

David: I just couldn't help pointing out one last instance of Stuart's digs at Terry, because it actually made me smile:

(Stuart): These are two winemakers with as much daring as talent and both are just beginning to spread their wings. By the way, they are both making almost exclusively making [sic] that “invasive species”, dry wines. PS Don’t worry, there really will be some serious thoughts on the Grosse Gewächse (GG) when I’ve managed to process the enormous mass of sensory data! Of course, they’re also all dry wines…what the hell are we getting into here?

Own-goal, Stuart: What led you to imagine that pointing to the (statistically near-certain) dryness of Riesling from two young Rheinhessen vintners and (legally requisite) dryness of GG has any rhetorical force beyond supporting my and Terry's contention that trocken is—outside the Mosel, Saar, and Ruwer—the overwhelmingly dominant species of contemporary German Riesling? Shouldn't you be trying to point instead to (in the phrase you borrowed from the Times' Roger Cohen) "flexi-Germans" who render Rieslings of between 10 and 40 grams of residual sugar?

You have to wonder about any publicists or growers who are being defensive about dry German Riesling after having totally WON the style war, or who keep patting themselves on the back on account of their Rieslings' virtuous dryness when non-dry Rieslings are a statistical anomaly. Might they be acting from deep-seated insecurity or from fear that the dominant style will lose its cutting-edge luster and approbative connotation and be recognized as going without saying? In that context, I suppose any attempt at critique of trocken-dominance such as I or Terry muster is a boon to those who would use it as an opportunity to pretend that Trockenheit in German Riesling is the hard-earned reward of some sort of grower Declaration of Independence and Liberty that must be defended against a return to servitude under the tyranny of sugar.

Terry: Stuart, having performed a high-minded and responsible act by running the text(s) I sent him—which I sincerely appreciate his having done—will now tweak me in his special manner. All the while not noticing the very thing David succinctly drew attention to: each thing he says supports my point rather than repudiating it.

Look: One of two things is true. Either my impressions had led me to a false conclusion, in which case I need to see a wider range of impressions so as to adapt that conclusion. (I await enlightenment!) Or, my conclusion was accurate but my value judgment was unreasonable. I haven't felt engaged (by Stuart) with anything approaching that clarity.

Looking back on this entire affair, I remain struck by the intensity of high dudgeon our pal Stuart displayed. The hegemony of trocken is so complete, I can't imagine what threat I pose to it; I'm no more than a pebble in its shoe.

Meanwhile, here is a way I've been thinking about this discussion the last few hours. The "you" I'm addressing is, I suppose, Stuart (and those who think as he does), and while I haven't thought this through, on first glance it seems apropos.

INSOFAR as we have an estate, such as Dönnhoff in the Nahe….and insofar as this estate produces a not-dry [basic] Gutsriesling to partner its dry sibling, and insofar as this estate also produces two Riesling Kabinetts avec du sucre residuel, and insofar as this estate produces a range of residually sweet Spätlesen which many consider iconic—here is my question.

Were Dönnhoff to pattern themselves along the lines overwhelmingly dominant in the Pfalz and Rheinhessen, and becoming ever-more dominant in the Rheingau, Nahe, and even the Mosel, they would then produce a range of entirely dry wines, leavened by a much smaller range of very sweet (over 100 grams of sugar) Spätlesen and whatever few Auslesen and dessert wines nature was able to provide. The Kabinett wines would be jettisoned as being trivial and conceptually inexplicable, and the five to six Spätlesen currently being made would reduce to one, maybe two much sweeter ones. The production of GGs and second wines of GGs would increase, along with a larger range of basic dry Rieslings named for their geology.

So, my question: would this be better or worse? Better or worse for Riesling, better or worse for Germany, better or worse for wine?

If ones answer—and I have no wish to "lead the witness"—is that it would be worse, then why on earth do we tolerate and defend it when it is in fact the case at a huge number of Riesling producers in Germany today? If ones answer is it would be better, then I personally would be very frightened, and the light will have left the sky. ♦

Images courtesy of Stuart Pigott and Dönnhoff.



Terry Theise has loved German Riesling since first tasting it 35 years ago and has been buying and selling the wines for 28 years. He is the author of Reading between the Wines (University of California Press, 2010).

Inspired in particular by meeting Terry Theise, David Schildknecht has been tasting his way through Germany annually since 1984. He covered its wines for Robert Parker's Wine Advocate, as well as being responsible for the entries on German wine in the 3rd and upcoming 4th editions of the Oxford Companion to Wine.