Is riesling Australia’s most underrated wine?

Riesling is one heck of an overachiever. It’s highly aromatic and potently flavoured, particularly for a white wine. It’s light-bodied when it’s young, and fuller when it’s aged, and, unlike plenty of other white wines, it’ll gladly chill out in the cellar until you’re ready. Riesling can swing between bracingly dry and dessert-level sweet, retaining its super zesty acidity all the while. It’s one of the most food-worthy wines out there, too – dry styles matching up with delicate oysters, and sweet versions taming tongue-scorching curries. And – somehow – riesling remains extremely well-priced through it all.

So, why doesn’t everyone love riesling? Are the rest of us just looking at this white wine through rosé-coloured glasses? Let’s dig a little deeper to find out.

Riesling has been showing up since the 15th century, first in Germany and Alsace, but it’s since swept the globe. These days you’ll find it everywhere from its Euro homebase and Australia and New Zealand to the chilly parts of the Americas and even China. Wherever it goes, though, riesling prefers the cold climes. 

Despite being so widespread, riesling still gets some dirty looks, and there are a couple of reasons why. For one, growing a grape like riesling outside of its favoured cool-climate regions will definitely not result in good wine – it might be sweet as hell without the acidity needed to balance it all out, or just be flat and flavourless. Another reason is that all sorts of cheap and terrible wines used to get (incorrectly) labelled as riesling back in the day. Hardly riesling’s fault, but you can understand why those who sampled a ‘riesling’ in the ’80s are reluctant to return to the well.

When thoughtfully made (and, y’know, when it’s actually riesling), we’re talking about an all-time wine. In Australia, we typically favour a dry style, often characterised by lime or lemon notes and almost always with a searing acidity behind it. These elements work just as well with Japanese cuisine as they do with spicy Thai. In fact, riesling might just be the ultimate all-rounder when you need a bottle to take to your favourite BYO. Whether made here or further abroad, it doesn’t matter – riesling is gold.

If you want to join us on the bandwagon (and there’s plenty of room), here are a few of our favourites to get you started.