Drink This Now: Lesson 5

My friends and I did lesson 5 from "Drink This Now".  It was honestly a very enjoyable learning experience because I have always wondered if chilling wine makes a big difference in your experience with wine.  Needless to say it does, and now I will show you how.

The wines we drank and the information around them are listed below.  We had to get a dry Riesling, which is the Hewitson Riesling from Australia, and a sweet Riesling, Schmitt Sohne Piesporter Michelsberg Riesling Spätlese from Germany.

Name: Hewitson Riesling

Variety: Riesling

Region: Eden Valley

Country: Australia

Year: 2020

Price: $12.99

Wine Review: Pale straw with green tinges. Citrus, especially lime, predominates the flavor profile while carrying the trademark minerality that Gun Metal is renowned for. Petals, minerals and talc. The palate is delicate, refined and intense, with a firm, dry finish and lingering aftertaste. Citrus, mineral and powder-dry finish.

Wine Folly: Page 362 says that Rieslings should have notes of lime, green apple, beeswax, jasmine, and petroleum. They pair well with spicy Indian and Asian foods as well as duck, pork, bacon, shrimp, and crab.  This was suggested by a worker, as a drier Riesling because Vintage Cellar did not have any of the other Rieslings listed in the category.

Name: Schmitt Sohne Piesporter Michelsberg Riesling Spätlese

Variety: Riesling and Muller-Thurgau

Region: Mosel

Country: Germany

Year: 2020

Price: $11.95

Wine Review: This fully-ripened Riesling from around the village of Piesport, located at the river Mosel, has highly extracted fruit flavors of apricots and peaches coupled with enough acidity to give it a firm and juicy mouth feel. Excellent by itself or to complement soft blue vein cheeses, richer style food with sauces and oriental dishes.

Wine Folly: Page 362 says that Rieslings should have notes of lime, green apple, beeswax, jasmine, and petroleum. They pair well with spicy Indian and Asian foods as well as duck, pork, bacon, shrimp, and crab.

    There are a few steps to this lesson, and they are separated below.

Step 1:

First, we poured a glass of each of the wines that were room temperature and set them aside.  Then, we chilled the wine for about an hour and a half while I went to class.  

Step 2: 

We tasted the chilled, dry wine from Australia then the chilled, sweet wine from Germany.  The dry wine is darker in color, it is slightly more yellow than the sweet wine.  The taste observations are listed below:

Chilled Dry: Upon the first sniff I smell slightly metallic and green apple.  It tastes different than a normal Riesling does to me.  It tastes a little of citrus, probably a grapefruit.  It also does have an apple taste and makes my mouth water.  

Chilled Sweet: It definitely smells sweeter.  More florals come from this wine.  It is more honeyed too and maybe geranium.  I like this one better.  Definitely get like a soft floral taste.  This wine does not really make my mouth water at all.  It is very light and very enjoyable.

Step 3: 

Overall the drier wine was again darker, more yellow. Now we will taste the differences between the warm and cold of each wine.

Warm Dry: It is not as strong as the smell from the chilled dry.  I still get the same hints of metallic and apple.  It doesn't smell as tart.  It is much more bitter, this is probably the acids being more pronounced. 

Cold Dry: It does not feel as bitter now.  I can still taste the apple, but I feel there is less metal to this than the warm.

Warm Sweet: Lighter color, same as the cold.  All I really smell here is the sweetness, a little honeyed.  I do not get much floral smells from it like I did the cold.  it was subtle.  It is much softer on the palette when sipping.  The flavors are much harder to taste.  It is almost like water going down the throat.

Cold Sweet: I get more of the florals in cold sweet compared to the warm sweet.  It is a little harsher on the palette if you will.

Step 4: 

When tasting you could tell they were the same wine, but with different flavors.  It was very surprising how much the dry Riesling tasted different compared to the sweet.  The sweet Riesling is what I think of as a typical Riesling.  I much preferred the sweeter Riesling, but I would drink the dry Riesling, over some other wines I have had.  My friends and I also did a wine and cheese pairing the same night, so please enjoy the pictures of all the wine and glasses we had out on my little coffee table, while we watched Love Island (the USA version).