Latest news with #riesling
Telegraph
25-05-2025
- General
- Telegraph
The best lower-alcohol wines to help you avoid a hangover
This bank holiday weekend, you may well have parties, barbecues or family get-togethers planned. Which, for wine drinkers, could lead to a potential pitfall on Tuesday when the alarm clock calls – a cracking hangover. It's a mistake to only consider volume when drinking wine – yes, obviously it's a good idea to switch from 250ml glassfuls to 175ml or, better, 125ml, and overall imbibe less, but if your wine is a stonking great shiraz or richly ripe chardonnay at, say 14.5% abv, the units of alcohol still quickly add up. So if you're not going full no-alc, it's wise to pick wines which are naturally lower in alcohol as well – the level will always be displayed on the label, front or back, and it can come as quite a surprise to see how widely this varies. Skip to: Wines made in cooler climates often come in at lower levels, as the grapes often don't get as ripe and therefore produce less sugar in the juice to turn into alcohol. In search of lower abvs, look to cool regions such as Germany's Mosel, northern Portugal's Vinho Verde, France's Loire Valley and England to tease out some lighter styles (in fizz, the lightest is usually north-east Italy's prosecco). Some grape varieties naturally produce lower levels of alcohol, too – riesling holds sway here. Then there are winemaking and viticultural techniques which help achieve alcohol levels sitting nicely between 5-11% abv. In New Zealand's Marlborough, for example, experiments to make naturally lower alcohol levels are proving successful; Forrest Wines' The Doctors' range of sauvignon blanc, riesling and pinot noir is produced using precision leaf-plucking in the vineyard, prompting grapes to ripen with plenty of flavour but lower sugar levels. Meanwhile Yealands' Nat Christensen, who makes the Sainsbury's NZ wine below, says she 'selects blocks of vines which show good early flavour development and balance to harvest earlier to achieve the desired lower alcohol levels'. In other cases, the fermentation is arrested, usually by chilling, so the alcohol level doesn't rise any further. That can usually mean there is more sugar left in the wine. So be careful when thinking about calories – lower alcohol means fewer of them in your glass, but higher sweetness clearly doesn't. I've got dry, medium and sweet wine recommendations below – and at the risk of sounding school-marmy, to avoid a Bank Holiday hangover you will still have to moderate your intake of even these lighter-weight wines. Why you can trust us Susy is an award-winning wine and drinks writer, presenter and broadcaster who started her career at the Which? Wine Guide. She is a long-standing correspondent for The Telegraph. When not writing, she is an experienced judge and panel chair at UK wine competitions.
The Guardian
15-05-2025
- Lifestyle
- The Guardian
Here comes summer: reasons to love riesling
I've been drinking a lot of riesling lately. There is, naturally, quite a bit of variety in a drinks writer's liquid diet, so to have the same thing twice in one week is a sure indication of a fascination developing, or of a habit forming. There's not much psychoanalysis required as to why that might be the case: the sun is out and, by the time this column comes out, it will (hopefully) be here to stay. And, for that, I simply must have a glass of white wine in my hand. The Guardian's journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more. Or maybe I need to dig a bit deeper. Why riesling specifically? I like my riesling how all the other freaks do – namely when it tastes as little like wine as possible. When petrol and wax abound on the nose. And with an acidity that slaps you round the face a little, as well as generous fruit that soothes. Riesling is a wine that feels like a meal. And, just maybe, after a haggard winter marked by comforting reds and weighted blankets, I'm in the mood to be challenged and excited again. It's because of these peculiar, acquired-taste notes that riesling is so often a grape for the wine nerds, yes, but that's also why I'm so pleased it's so easy to pick up in supermarkets and wine shops alike. The kinds of riesling you'll most likely find in the supermarket are German and dry, though there is also plenty to discover from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Alsace. They tend to be labelled by variety only, however, so if you want to be sure of the sweetness levels, make sure you check the label to know what to expect. In the wine classification of prädikatswein, the lightest dry German rieslings are described as kabinett-style: that is, bright and with low residual sugar. These are usually appley, sprightly things that you can drink without overthinking, and are the sort of riesling to serve to someone who needs convincing, or who doesn't think a nose pull of petrol is the most pleasurable thing on Earth. Yet. Moving up the scale, we have spätlese (literally, 'late harvest'), for which the grapes are picked at least a week after the regular harvest, so have more time to ripen and have a higher sugar content. They also tend to be fleshier, and are certainly the least intense of the sweeter rieslings. You may also come across riesling marked auslese, meaning selected harvest wines that can be even riper than spätlese, but not always. Sweeter, off-dry riesling (wherever it's from) is the firm foil to the supposition that sweetness = poor quality. These wines can be intriguing, poised, and the best are kept in check with a fine acidity. Confront yourself. Embrace the sweetness. Dr L Grey Slate Riesling £10 Waitrose, 10.5%. Named after the Mosel's terrain, this is clean, crisp and mineral. Moselland Riesling Spätlese 2023 £11.40 Tanners Wine Merchants, 14%. A little fuller, and made from late-harvested grapes. Like fruit dipped in honey. Tin Shed Wild Bunch Riesling 2023 £24 Good Wine Good People, 12.4%. A great year for Australia's Eden Valley riesling, and this one's bright and vivacious. Mont Gras Handcrafted Bío Bío Riesling 2020 £13.50 The Wine Society, 13%. A Chilean sweet riesling for aromatic dishes.
