Riesling is the great grape of the Rhine, first named in a Rüsselsheim cellar record of 1435 and shown by DNA to descend from the ubiquitous Gouais Blanc. Late-ripening and superbly frost-hardy in the wood, it clings to the steep slate slopes of the Mosel, where it mirrors its site with a transparency no other white matches — every shift of soil and slope legible in the glass.
It spans the whole spectrum of sweetness, from featherlight dry Kabinett to the botrytised nectar of Trockenbeerenauslese, always held together by a spine of racing acidity. With age it develops the famous "petrol" note, from the compound TDN. In the nineteenth century the finest Rhine Rieslings fetched prices above the first growths of Bordeaux — a reminder that this, not any red, was once Germany's claim to the summit of wine.