Too sweet..or not too sweet ,that's the question

[Wenams]

I'm trying to settle a little dispute between myself and a very pompous manager in my comany. While interviewing potential hires, she sarted grilling them about Reisling wines. Don't ask me why. She was emphatic that reisling wines were dry and peppery. Now, I've been taught, and also tasted that reislings are usually sweet wines, usually wines that are considered dessert wines. I'd love to get as many opinions as I can..... I hate when people try to intimidate other's with wine knowledge.

[Innkeeper]

If you go to Germany and travel to any of the wine regions, and stop in any of their towns in front of a place with wine bottles in the window, just go in and introduce yourself. The proprietor will bring out a flight of ten to twelve bottles of his current offerings. He or she will have you taste them from dry to sweet, and the sweetest will typically be a Spatlese. They are able to do this by "owning" one or two rows in as many vinyards as they have offerings. More sophisticated wineries will have still sweeter Auslese, Beerinauslese, Trokenbeerinauslese, and maybe even Eiswein. That is the long answer. The short answer is that German Riesling can be anything from bone dry to disgustingly sweet.

[Thomas]

In addition, Rieslings produced in New York State (second only to Germany for this variety) run the range from dry to disgustingly sweet.

Generally, Riesling has so much acidity that a bone dry one takes some getting used to. But the common American belief that Riesling is always sweet is based on ignorance that stems from the stuff Germany sent to our shores in the 1970s, because that is what Americans wanted then. The irony is: that Liebfraumilch isn't produced from Riesling.