Riesling

Fromm Winery produces low alcohol wines similar to German Rieslings from the Mosel/Saar/Ruwer region. These sweet wines have an amazing balance between acid and sugar. While they have high residual sugar, they never seem cloyingly sweet, and have alcohols as low as 7-8%.

This German style Marlborough Riesling offers bright green apple, citrus and mineral notes. The texture is oily and rich, with juicy, bright acidity bringing balance.

Terrace Edge is a family owned wine brand in North Canterbury, which makes two styles of Riesling each year. This wine is the sweeter style, with 28 grams of residual sugar making it medium sweet in taste but nicely balanced by refreshing high acidity. 

It's a tasty, rich style of Riesling, hugely popular thanks to its lively fresh acidity and length of flavour. It is also certified organic.

Terrace Edge was named the New Zealand Organic Vineyard of the Year in 2018 and this year was named Aotearoa New Zealand Organic Winery of the Year.

Riesling is the greatest lower alcohol wine because it has more flavour than most grape varieties which lends itself to higher intensity of taste, balanced by naturally high acidity for freshness. Flavours here span the gamut of freshly picked apples, lemon sherbert and crisp lime juice in a refreshing, lower alcohol Riesling with its 9% ABV. This wine has a beautiful balance of flavour, natural acidity and great length with a long finish. This wine is a great way of enjoying a glass or two, without feeling the same impact of the same amount of wine with more typical alcohol levels of over 12% ABV.

The aim of the game here was to create a lower alcohol wine naturally without doctoring it, if you'll excuse the pun, by removing alcohol. The Riesling grapes in The Doctors' Riesling were fermented to a medium sweet level so that natural grape sugar is retained and the alcohol remains lower than usual. 

Winemakers John and Beth Forrest (a father-daughter team) strike an excellent balance between fruity sweetness and bright acidity in this tasty wine.

Dry, full bodied, iconoclastic Riesling from New Zealand's king of spatlese styles, Mat Donaldson and his winemaking team at Pegasus Bay Winery, which is New Zealand's greatest Riesling producer. 

This wine, Bel Canto, is the queen of the winery's Riesling range. It is bone dry with 5 grams per litre of residual sugar due to high brix (grape sugars) at harvest time and a small percentage of noble rot (also known as botrytis). It drinks well now and can age for the long term; up to and beyond 10 years. 

Extended hang time on the vines has resulted in the intensely ripe, tropical fruit flavours in the grapes which were picked to retain refreshing, high but balanced acidity. The free run juice was fermented slowly at cool temperatures to retain fruit characters and varietal purity. Alcoholic fermentation was left to continue until residual sugar of 5 g/l was achieved. Retention of a little of natural carbon dioxide gives spritz character to add liveliness and accentuate freshness.

Made by Mt Edward winery co-owner, winemaker and Riesling devotee Duncan Forsyth, whose focus is on dry Rieslings. This is a super tasty with with complex fresh aroma spectrum and flavours of lemons, limes, and grapefruit, underpinned by the freshness of sorbet and a lingering dry finish. 

Grapes were whole bunch pressed and fermented in stainless steel barrels and stainless tanks with wild yeasts, no temperature control and lees aging for three months.

Classic by name and by nature. This is a full bodied, mouth filling, medium dry Riesling that is brimming with flavour, such as ripe orange, peach and mandarin. Its juicy acidity adds tension to the wine, providing a structured and beautiful aromatic white with flavours of ripe stonefruit supported by notes of freshness that lend it a long, succulent finish that tastes dry following the rich mid palate. The palate is vibrant, intense and focused with orange, nectarine and cream flavours and a good line of juicy acidity.

Central Otago has great potential with white wines as this dry Riesling from Amisfield Winery shows. It's one of three Rieslings produced by this well known winery and is a top seller for us here at Regional, not least because it's a totally dry style which appeals more to most wine lovers. 

Fortunately, none of the flavour is sacrificed because of its dry linear, fresh acidity and crisp style. 

This is a super refreshing dry wine made from one of the world's greatest, most under rated white grapes. Riesling. A must try for white wine lovers. 

Peregrine's quest for outstanding Central Otago wine begins in the three distinct sub-regions from which we draw our fruit: Bendigo, Pisa and Gibbston, where their landmark winery rises up amongst rugged rock reefs and ancient hills. In each of these locations, their commitment to organic farming and viticulture guarantees fruit of the highest quality, imparting the clearest expression of character to every vintage.

Winemaker and owner Gerd Stepp makes this exceptional German Riesling from a single vineyard in the country's warm southern region of the Pfalz. 

The Kallstadter Saumage vineyard is all about loess and loam rich soils with a high limestone content, where the soils are full of tiny fossil shells, which provide high calcium content. 

Gerd is no fan of botrytis so this stunning dry Riesling is all about lemon essence on the palate with apple, honey and citrus notes driving its core flavours. This wine is very clean, light bodied is expresses the very essence of wine - grape purity and length. 

A beautiful wine now and with potential to be a great ager.

The Main Divide is the name of the Southern Alps and a range of great wines made by the Pegasus Bay winemaking team. These wines consistently over deliver, drink beautifully when young with their rich and opulent house style - and also age surprisingly well, given the modest price they cost.

The Riesling grapes in this wine were picked over several weeks at between 23-25 brix, which creates rich, tasty Riesling. Fermentation was in stainless steel at cool temperatures and the finished wine retains a little carbon dioxide, which accentuates fresh zingy flavours in the wine, which contains 24 grams of residual sugar.

It's a full bodied, opulent style with a crisp finish.

Crater Rim Riesling is medium sweet in style but so beautifully balanced by fresh  acidity that it tastes medium dry with great concentration of tropical fruit flavours and a succulent, long finish. It's made with grapes grown on Glasnevin Gravels, one of North Canterbury's golden miles of vineyards.

Winemaker Haydon Good worked for Clemens Busch in the Mosel, from which he says one of his take home pieces of information for making Riesling was to make picking decision on acidity then balance the wine with residual sugar, depending on the season and the acidity. That philosophy comes through bright, fresh and clear in this stunningly good value Riesling. 

Complex but light, layers of flavour but focussed and pure, this lovely German Riesling is a paradox, like many of the great wines of the world. Flavours of limes, lemons and liquid honey type flavours give this lively wine its complex flavours. It is medium dry in style which means has a hint of sweet aromatic intensity in the mid palate and finishes dry and crisp. 

Giesen Mosel Reiler Goldlay is the first German Riesling from the Giesen brothers, who bought a small block of vineyard land in the village of Reil on the banks of the famous Mosel River. They contracted their friend and fellow winemaker, Tobias Treis, to make this wine, which was then shipped to New Zealand.

Noble Riesling from the King Valley in Victoria.

Fresh lifted aromatics and classic botrytis characters like orange marmalade, citrus and honey, the complexity, richness and elegance of this wine make it a delicious partner to desserts as well as cheese platters.

Mat Donaldson and his talented winemaking team create this fabulous Riesling, which is modelled on the best full bodied wines from both Germany and Austria. It is made from grapes given a long hang time on the vines and is, consistently, one of New Zealand's greatest white wines every year, thanks to winemaker Mat Donaldson and his talented team of Riesling devotees at Pegasus Bay Winery in the Waipara Valley, North Canterbury. It is succulent, medium dry, concentrated and rich in taste with a honeyed texture and and notes of lemongrass, lemon zest and ripe mandarins leading into a full bodied, weighty, off dry white with high but balanced acidity providing a long finish.

* This wine may form a natural sediment over time due to the winery's minimal handling philosophy. It has been cold stabilised by the winemaking team at Pegasus Bay.

Hand harvested bunches of grapes with at least 30% noble botrytis were fermented slowly at cool temperatures in stainless steel to retain the bold, richly deep fruit characters and varietal purity of late harvest Riesling. Aromas span the range of limes, mandarins, peaches, cantaloupe melons and comb honey, with a hint of root ginger. While mouth filling and concentrated, it has a lively core of crisp acidity and minerality that provides a perfect foil to its lusciousness and draws out the lingering aftertaste. With careful cellaring this wine should develop extra complexity and depth over the next decade and live well beyond.