Pigott - Best white wine on Earth: the Riesling book

RIESLING AT A GLANCE

Reeez-ling is the correct pronunciation, but pleasure is way more important than pronunciation, and every day it gives refreshing pleasure to the tens of millions of citizens of Planet Riesling!

Riesling is a very sexy white wine made from the grape of the same name that originated in Germany,
where its still the most important wine grape.
However, Riesling is now planted around the globe, and the second-largest planted area is in the USA.
Welcome to the United States of Riesling!

Riesling isnt always sweet, in fact it often tastes drier than Chardonnay,
Sauvignon Blanc, or Pinot Grigio. However, even when its sweet, its a great food wine that cant wait to get onto your dinner table and into your picnic basket.

The label usually tells you if a Riesling is dry or sweet, so its rarely a problem figuring out which wines are right for you. Look for the IRF (International Riesling Foundation) taste profile, and if there isnt one, look at the alcoholic content. A Riesling with 12% or more alcohol is almost certainly dry, and one with 10% or less is almost certainly sweet.

Riesling is a democratic wine you can afford. Sure, the most expensive white wine in the world is a Riesling, but this is a rare exception. The great majority of Rieslings have friendly prices and are a great value for the money.

Riesling is an authentic wine that hasnt been bastardized by corporate bean counters and marketing departments. It tastes of where it grew, who made it, and how the growing season was. No oak flavor was added to it!

This is how the IRF Taste Profile looks:

THIS RIESLING IS:

INTERNATIONAL RIESLING FOUNDATION

For more information visit www.drinkriesling.com and www.stuartpigott.com

Published in 2014 by Stewart, Tabori & Chang
An imprint of ABRAMS

Text copyright 2014 Stuart Pigott

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013950116

ISBN: 978-1-61769-110-2

Editor: Leslie Stoker
Designer: Steve Attardo / NINETYNORTH
Production Manager: Anet Sirna-Bruder

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FOR SHEILA WITH THANKS FOR EVERYTHING

W hen I think of Stuart Pigott, I immediately see a picture of Joan of Arc in my minds eye. Yes, yes, I know Stuart was not born to a peasant family in the north of France, nor does he have a shred of military might in those thin forearms. I do not believe he has ever donned a suit of chainmail (but hey, if you have ever seen the guy dance in his flowing, bespoke red coat, you might think otherwise). And I am pretty sure he does not communicate with the Pope on a daily basis, though both take pride in washing other peoples feet. And since Stuart is still with us, a funeral pyre has yet to be lit in his name.

But it is in Joans disdain for heresy that I most see an image of Stuart. In an aggressive letter to the Hussites in 1430, Joan penned the rather Johnny Rottenesque missive: I promise to remove your madness and foul superstition, taking away either your heresy or your lives. Now, I do not imagine Stuart riding across the landscape on his horse named Chardonnay, leading an army of Riesling soldiers (pity the horse!). I do, however, have every belief that Stuart feels to his core a similar devotion, a similar calling to spread the gospel of Riesling to the masses.

Unfortunately for Riesling advocates everywhere, the glories of this miraculous grape have been buried beneath the hackneyed beliefs of a marketplace that rewards massive oversimplification and damns complexity. Lets blame Beavis & Butthead for leading a campaign of categorization: Things are either cool or they suck. And there is no in between. I guess a few things in life can be defined so quickly, but Riesling is one thing that cannot and must not be pigeonholed. The range of wines produced from this grape are simply too vast to be covered in a single statement or arse-crack remark. We must revel in this diversity; we must long to wade into this majestic sea of Rieslingness, because with every sip comes a smile, a realization that a world was just consumed in that gulp of grape juice.

And while we are all swimming / floating across this emerald sea, Stuart will be walking across the surface, as if from on high, trumpeting the saving graces of Riesling. His mission is profound and simple: to get a bottle of Riesling on every table in the land. Even if his horse Chardonnay cannot make the journey, Stuart will come knocking on your door, and you will invite him in. All hail Stuart Pigott, King of Riesling!

Paul Grieco
Hearth and Terroir
New York

Theres nothing quite as delicious as a Riesling made from perfectly ripe grapes like thesebest white wine on earth!

T his story begins with the simple observation that if you remove the prejudices, then Riesling often tastes better than other white wines. That would once have seemed like a daring claim, but since February 1, 2012, when I began working on this book and the accompanying blog (www.stuartpigott.com), Ive experienced unprecedented excitement about Riesling in places as far apart in terms of distance and culture as New York, San Francisco, Sydney, and Berlin. It caught me by surprise, because it wasnt like that only a few years ago, never mind back in the 1980s, when I began exploring the world of wine and I first hooked up with Riesling.

Theres not only a spirit of the times; theres also a wine of the times, and Riesling is the white wine of our time. One of the most important reasons for this is that unlike so many other wines, and so much else in our globalized (i.e., globally homogenized) world, Riesling hasnt been bastardized by corporate bean counters and marketing departments.