Pairing of the Day: Sauerkraut and ribs with Riesling! This bone DRY* Mosel Riesling pairs perfectly with my hubs’ ribs which were marinated and baked in beer then grilled to perfection. This wine is paired with the sauerkraut, not the ribs, because it is the food on the plate with the strongest flavors. When pairing food with wine, don’t forget about the condiments, sides and sauces!!! Sauerkraut goes beautifully with Riesling- they are literally made to go together!
Sweetness Levels
*DRY wine means wine with no added sugars and very little residual grape sugars left in the wine after fermentation is complete. Riesling comes in a variety of sweetness levels but as tastes have been changing worldwide and people now prefer less sweet wine, there are more dry Rieslings readily available in the marketplace.
Look for the words DRY, TROCKEN, FEINHERB or the International Riesling sliding scale on the back label which denotes sweetness level. These dry wines will have less than 4 gm (never more than 9gm depending on the acid level) of sugar / LITER!
So AT MOST this 750 mL bottle of wine has 3-6.75 gm of sugar in the entire bottle and there are typically 3-5 glasses / bottle which makes this wine perfectly low carb (Keto friendly even) in my book!
Taste and Smell
Now, a dry Riesling can still have intensely fruity aromas and flavors without being sweet. The flavors and aromas depend on the ripeness of the fruit when picked not necessarily on any residual sugar. This is an association in your brain, the same smells and flavors remind you of fruit, which is full of sugar, so it seems that the wine is sugary sweet too, but that is not the case in a dry wine. I struggled with this concept when I was first getting into wine but then I realized that sweetness level is a defined term and not an opinion or perception. It is either present or not and to varying degrees. A wine lecture I recently attended explained that if you cannot tell if a wine is sweet because there is actually sugar present or if it is simply fruity, then you should take a drink and plug your nose. If the wine still seems sweet with your nose plugged, then you are tasting the sugar on the front of your tongue and there is in fact some level of sweetness in the wine but if not, then you are likely just understandably associating fruity aromas with actual sweetness that is not present.
Speaking of wine aromas, who knows the signature aroma of (older) Riesling? Well if you know then you know, but if you don't, you'd never guess - Petrol. Yep, you heard me petrol and it's supposed to smell that way. Bring out that trivia at your next wine party.
Prost!!!🥂
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