Riesling

Riesling is a grape variety and varietal appellation of wines from Alsace (France), Austria, and Germany, among others. Riesling wines are traditionally sweet to medium sweet, but those from Alsace tend to be dry or nearly so. Dry German Rieslings are increasingly popular in Germany, and are labeled as trocken. Other names for true Riesling are Johannisberg Riesling (named after the famed Schloss Johannisberg) and White Riesling. Many grapes that incorporate the name Riesling are not true Riesling. For example, Grey Riesling is actually Trousseau Gris, an unrelated but not entirely dissimilar grape.

Rieslings are now also produced in the New World, notably Australia, where the grape is used to produce a distinctive crisp, dry and fruity wine. Peter Lehmann is notable for his production of quality Australian reisling.

The most highly regarded wines made from Riesling are dessert wines, produced by letting the grapes hang on the vines well past normal picking time. Through evaporation caused by the fungus Botrytis cinera or by freezing, as in the case of ice win/eiswein