Old World v. New World
Wine Blogging Wednesday is a blog event created by Lenn Thompson. Read more about WBW here. The basic gist is that a host proposes a wine to taste, you taste, then blog about it.
This month’s pick is Old World Reisling. My first reaction was “Blech. I don’t like Riesling’s, too sweet.” But, I was going to be open-minded. Quit snickering.
Not knowing my Old World from my New World Rieslings, I decided to subject our guinea pig dinner guests, Mitch & Ali to a little blind tasting. 
The Old World: Chateau D’Orschwihr Riesling Bollenberg 2006, France.
The New World: Grant Burge (Barossa) Thorn Eden Valley Riesling, 2006, Australia
Served with roasted quail over bulgur wheat. For anyone remotely interested in why bulgar is spelled about 25 different ways, click here. It’s amazing how much importance something like this can take on when there are 2 bottles of wine being drunk! I’m also a firm believer in tasting wine with food; it’s the way god intended wine to be drunk.
The Australian Riesling came out of the bottle with a bit of a fizz, or maybe it was just a sparkle, but it had a pleasant, peachy nose with hints of citrus, moderately lingering finish.
The French Riesling was clearer, more direct with hints of lemon peel, but also a cooling minerality and a longer finish.
The night wore on and we continued to sip and to eat and funny things started happening in the glass.
Our Aussie friend, well, she just sort of relaxed in the glass, and got a little flabby, a little too lazy. She’s just a party girl at heart.
Our French friend remained….austere. That was the word Mitch used, when he nailed the Old World wine. It stayed upright and proper all through the meal while continuing to refresh and enhance the palate.
The Chateau d’Orschwihr was empty by now, so we returned to the Grant Burge for a final sip, and on its own, not in a comparison tasting, it was quite a nice, easy to drink, summery tasting wine.
Moral of the story: Rieslings are good. They should be a great, food friendly summer wine choice. See, pays to be open minded. Come on, quit snickering!
