Canada vs. The World: Riesling
One Grape, Three Regions
I mentioned in last month’s newsletter that for my wine-focused posts (second Tuesday of the month) I’m going to follow the theme of “Canada vs. The World” to compare wines from different regions of Canada to a region of the world where a particular grape or blend might be better know.
One other thing to mention is that I'm experimenting with linking content from this newsletter with my podcast (where possible) so that you can get the content in two different forms, depending on your preference. That said, there will be some overlap between the two formats, but there might also be some underlap, so to get the full breadth of the content, you’ll have to read AND listen.
For this experiment, I decided to start with Riesling for a couple of reasons:
Canada does Riesling really well, so I was eager to try some of our best offerings.
I was gifted a bottle of Riesling from Québec (purchased at the SAQ in Montréal) and I was intrigued to taste it and compare it to the Rieslings I normally drink.
I like Riesling and I wish more people would give it a try.
The Wines
Domaine St-Jacques, Riesling 2022, Vin du Québec (IGP), 1.2g/L RS, $23.70
Liebling Wines, Riesling 2022, VQA St. David’s Bench, Lingard Vineyard, `7-9g/L RS, $19.10
Studert-Prüm, Riesling Trocken 2023, Mosel, Germany, ~7-9g/L RS $15.60
Selection Process
My goal was to pick wines that were of a similar vintage, price point, and alcohol level. And, especially for Riesling, I wanted bottles that have a similar level of residual sugar. Thankfully, the LCBO lists the sugar content on their tags, and the rest is easily identified on the label.
I already had the bottle from Québec as it was a gift from my brother, so I went in search of one from Ontario and another one from Germany. I could have also included Alsace, France, in my search as there are many lovely Rieslings from that region, but a girl’s only got so much money!
Vintages
The two Canadian bottles were from 2022 and the German bottle from 2023, so only 1-2 years old.
Price
The most expensive bottle was $23.70 (Québec ) and the least expensive was $15.60 (Germany), so there was a bit more of a difference than I would normally have. But as you’ll see, the most expensive bottle isn’t always the favourite one!
Sugar
I could not find any information on residual sugar (RS) on the LCBO web site, but my spotty memory believes that both the Ontario and German wines were around 7-9g/L of residual sugar, putting them both in the dry (D) category. The bottle from Québec was bone-dry (XD) at a mere 1.2g/L RS.
Alcohol
The bottles from Ontario and Germany were both 11%ABV and the one from Québec was 12%.
Tasting Process
I was attempting to taste these bottles “blind” but since I was the one wrapping them in foil, I sort of had an idea which bottle was which. But Cousin Jano (my tasting partner) did not. Also, the shape of the Québec Riesling bottle was different in that it was in a shape normally used for Chardonnay, whereas the other two, which were both in the long slender style typically used for Riesling, Gewürztraminer, Pinot Gris, etc. which made it easy for me to know which was which (but I kept it a secret from her.)
I poured and we tasted one wine at a time, starting with Wine #1, then moving on to #2 and #3, giving our impressions on the following categories:
Appearance
Colour
Clarity
Effervescence (if any)
Legs (viscosity and alcohol)
Nose
Primary aromas
Secondary aromas
Taste
Acidity
Sweetness
Fruit
Body
Tannins
Complexity
Finish
Food
We tasted each of the wines first without food, then we had cheese fondue for dinner, continuing to drink the wines. We then went back for one final taste after they’d all warmed up a bit. You can hear our thoughts on that in the podcast, but the bottom line is that most of us drink our red wines too warm and our white wines too cold. All three improved once they’d warmed up a bit and the full flavours came through.
Tasting Notes
Jano (FYI, who can’t smell)
Pretty basic, tasted more like a Pinot Grigio, wouldn’t buy it.
Loved it! Diamon-clear, lemon, long, soft finish. I would drink this all the time.
Excellent! Crisp, lemon pith, stands up.
Lesley
Med-pale yellow, clear, medium acid, medium finish, a bit watery, some fruitiness. Meh.
Very pale yellow, crystal clear, nose of stone fruits and lemon, med-high acidity, nice level of sweetness, luscious mouth feel, lemon peel and white peaches, nice complexity, medium finish. Loved it! 100% would buy again.
Very pale yellow (almost identical to wine #2,) lemon, stone fruits, pineapple, sweetness comes through as juiciness, a bit of lemon pith and prickly pineapple in the finish. Very good! A fantastic bargain at <$16/bottle.
Final Verdict
Neither of us particularly liked the wine from Québec, finding it a bit too watery, and thought it could have used a bit more sweetness to make it stand out a bit more. The Liebling from Ontario (#2) was my favourite, whereas Jano preferred the Studert-Prüm (#3), but it was a real toss-up for both of us and a very close call. We both said we’d drink either of these wines at any time in the future, but with the German wine being such a bargain, how can we pass it up?
Summary
As mentioned off the top, I’ll continue doing these Canada vs. The World reviews every month on the second Tuesday of the month. Besides highlighting specific grapes and regions, my goal is to also share my process so that if you feel like taking on a similar challenge, you’ve got the blueprint to start from (though I might not go into as much detail on the process in the future.)
Have you done a similar tasting before? How did you do it and what were your results? Let me know in the comments.
Podcast Link
If you want to hear us discuss the wines in real-time, you can click to play it here, or listen in your favourite podcast platform. [I have a bit of a circular problem in that I can’t post the direct link to the episode here because it’s not yet published, though it will be by the time you read this. Oh well, I’m sure you can figure it out.]
RSS feed for all podcast platforms: https://anchor.fm/s/3d9e6a64/podcast/rss