Austria tops blind Riesling tasting

Austria came out top in a blind tasting of 75 Rieslings from around the world at London’s 28-50 Wine Workshop last week.

Among the raft of Rieslings, it was the 2004 Gaisberg Riesling from Weingut Hirsch in Kamptal that gained the most votes, followed by Egon Muller’s 2008 Scharzhof and then another Austrian, Prager’s 2007 Steinriegel from Wachau.

Organiser of the event, blogger and former sommelier Robert Giorgione, admitted he was surprised at Austria’s success, considering the famous names from other high quality Riesling regions in Europe and elsewhere.

However, he said: “I think the Austrian wines had perhaps a bit more complexity and they tended to make the biggest impact.”

The tasting was focused on dry styles of Riesling with nine from Austria, nine from Alsace, one from Luxembourg, 14 from Germany, one from Italy, two from the US, 17 from Australia, 21 from New Zealand and one from Chile. Visit Giorgione’s website for a full list of the wines that were shown and the tasters present.

Wines that stood out for db, who attended the event, were Egon Muller’s 2008 Scharzfhof from the Saar, Weinbach’s 2006 Saint Catherine from Alsace, and Leitz’s 2006 Berg Kaisersteinfels from the Rheingau.

Interestingly, also highly rated by db and others was Jean Sipp’s Riesling from Alsace, which at just over £8 through Laytons was undoubtedly the best value wine of the tasting.

From the New World, the 2009 “Limited Edition Dry” from relatively new Marlborough label Little Beauty was notably good.

Giorgione, who previously helped in the organisation of the Pinot Puzzle blind tasting for press and sommeliers, told db that he would possibly be holding another “pop up” event for Chenin Blanc and that he’d like to run a Shiraz versus Syrah tasting too.

Patrick Schmitt, 03.02.2011