What I know of who's coming and an article on Rieslings from the SFGChronicle. I'm a maybe at this point. Many of the app's we sampled with 3M group were boring. Entrees were good. Bob, Betsy Annette Warren/Ruth Jim ----- Forwarded message from Betsy Kremser <Betsy.Kremser(a)co.anoka.mn.us> ----- Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 15:46:14 -0500 From: "Betsy Kremser" <Betsy.Kremser(a)co.anoka.mn.us> To: <wine(a)thebarn.com> Subject: [wine] Sparkling Wines & Rieslings at Krua Thailand Bob made reservations for 10 at Krua Thailand on Thursday, June 6. Sparkling wines and Rieslings are the styles of choice. Krua Thailand 432 University Ave W Saint Paul, MN 55103 651-224-4053 It's on the south side of University between Arundel and Western. Bring glasses. Bob says they don't have much in terms of glassware to offer. ----- End forwarded message ----- Refreshing German Rieslings are sweet, but not to a fault - W. Blake Gray, Chronicle Staff Writer Thursday, July 6, 2006 Click to View The worst thing about the World Cup is that it ends too soon. The world's greatest, most popular sporting event takes a whole month, but just when the biological clock gets accustomed to 7 a.m. games, and the neighbors are used to screams of "Goooooaaal!" at 7:15, the whole shebang's over. If the finale on Sunday leaves you thirsting for more, extend the Cup feeling with the greatest wine of host country Germany -- Riesling. German Rieslings are consistently among the most excellent wine bargains. The best ones are complex, delicious and refreshing. Plus, they're generally low in alcohol, allowing you to have one more glass than usual. But there's a catch: A word that rhymes with "neat" and "petite" and has come to be an expletive for many wine lovers. Instead of speaking this verboten word aloud, we use polite euphemisms like "off-dry." So I'll say it out loud: Yes, most German Rieslings are sweet. But the good ones balance that out-of-favor characteristic with high acidity, making them food-friendly and thirst-quenching without being cloying. Sweetness isn't such a bad thing for food pairing. Because of it, German Rieslings go nicely with spicy dishes that make other wines taste unpleasantly "hot" (high in alcohol). German Rieslings are among the few wines that go well with Thai food, with its complex combinations of spicy and sour elements. They're good with Mexican food as well. Bad nun flashbacks Unfortunately, German wines' reputation is stained for many Americans by the lingering stigma of Blue Nun -- as iconic for the bad-taste 1970s as bell-bottoms or wild-colored polyester shirts. Beyond the specter of the Nun, the complicated labels on German bottles have also hampered their acceptance in the U.S. market. While language is a barrier, it's not the only one. Many Americans have a passing understanding of French wine lingo, as much of it has been accepted into English. Spanish and Italian wines more or less follow the French model; if you understand appellation controlee ("name controlled," it signifies the region where the grapes were grown), then you can figure out its equivalent in Spanish and Italian. German wines require learning not just new words, but new concepts. The most important is ripeness level -- grapes for Auslese wines are riper than those for Spatlese, so the wines are sweeter. Kabinett grapes are less ripe than Spatlese. In the bargain price range, though, you don't usually have to worry about these classifications, as most cheap German Rieslings are QbA -- a more general classification with less ripe grapes. It's an indication of how confusing German wine labels are that few of these wines actually say "QbA" anywhere on the bottle. You just have to surmise it from the absence of the other terms. Ironically, because the grapes are less ripe for less-expensive wines, the resultant wines are usually less sweet, making them ideal for people who believe that adjective is derogatory. My favorite wine this week is from a producer that understands the marketing value of modern labels. The 2005 Schmitt Sohne Relax Mosel-Saar-Ruwer Riesling ($10) has a strikingly cool blue bottle that gives orders in huge white letters to people with a Blue Nun fixation: "Relax." And enjoy it -- the delicious flavors of peach, pear and apricot have a slight, fruity sweetness. The 9.5 percent alcohol level means that if you can normally drink two glasses of 14 percent alcohol wine, you can have three glasses of this. I had the 2005 Rudi Wiest Rhein River Rheinhessen Riesling ($10) with takeout rotisserie chicken and it was a wonderful match. The wine's apple and quince flavors tasted vibrant throughout its long finish. The 2003 Rudi Wiest Selections Mosel River Mosel-Saar-Ruwer Riesling ($10) is also pretty good, if simpler, tasting mostly of apple. It's sweeter than the Rhein River version. German from California The 2005 Ironstone Vineyards Pfalz Riesling ($10) is a multicultural oddity; a German Riesling from a California winery. Ironstone Vineyards was founded in 1990 in Murphys, in Calaveras County, by the Kautz family, whose ancestors were winemakers in the Pfalz region of Germany. Ironstone specializes in red wines but wanted to add a white wine; however, the family wasn't growing white grapes, so they looked overseas to Zimmerman-Graeff & Mueller, a German producer that makes wine for several other companies as well. ZG&M made Ironstone a proprietary blend for this delicious wine, which smells and tastes of lychee and fresh-cut flowers. Crisp and slightly sweet, the wine has vibrant acidity that makes it refreshing and food-friendly. Three well-respected German producers make similarly fine Rieslings in the bargain price range. The 2003 Loosen Dr. L Mosel-Saar-Ruwer Riesling ($10), 2004 Two Princes Nahe Riesling ($11) and 2003 S.A. Prum Essence Mosel-Saar-Ruwer Riesling ($11) all have an apple and brown sugar character. The Essence, another wine with a modern nickname, also offers hints of apricot and toast, and is a bit less sweet than the other two. None has an alcohol level higher than 10 percent. The 2005 St. Urbans-Hof Mosel-Saar-Ruwer Riesling ($10) looks more traditional, with a religious icon and plenty of German terms on the front label. It's the most unusual of the wines recommended here, with strongly green, herbal aromas and flavors of green apple, apricot and green-leaf lettuce that linger on a medium-long finish. With the exception of the Ironstone wine, of which 10,000 cases were imported, the problem with recommending German Rieslings is that most are low-production wines that may not be easy to find. Riesling Down Under Enter the world's mass producers: the Aussies. The 2005 Banrock Station South Eastern Australia Riesling ($5) is an excellent deal for the price. Many Australian Rieslings are bone-dry, but this is in the German style, slightly sweet but not cloying, with flavors of lemon-lime and mango. Finally, for people who think sweetness is a plus, not a curse, the 2005 Hardys South Eastern Australia Riesling ($19 for 3-liter box) is unabashedly for you; it's like a liquid candied apple. And the bag-in-box style will preserve the wine in your refrigerator for as long as four weeks after opening, perhaps long enough for the pain of Australia's exit from the World Cup on a bizarrely awarded penalty kick to fade. No matter who wins the Cup on Sunday, a toast with the greatest varietal from the host country is appropriate. And since it's low in alcohol, you can also drink a cup to a better performance by the U.S. team (sigh) in South Africa in 2010. Shopping list These are the best deals The Chronicle found this week. Rieslings 2005 Banrock Station South Eastern Australia Riesling ($5) 2005 Hardys South Eastern Australia Riesling ($19 for 3-liter box) 2005 Ironstone Vineyards Pfalz Riesling ($10) 2003 Loosen Dr. L Mosel-Saar-Ruwer Riesling ($10) 2005 Rudi Wiest Rhein River Rheinhessen Riesling ($10) 2003 Rudi Wiest Selections Mosel River Mosel-Saar-Ruwer Riesling ($10) 2003 S.A. Prum Essence Mosel-Saar-Ruwer Riesling ($11) 2005 Schmitt Sohne Relax Mosel-Saar-Ruwer Riesling ($10) 2005 St. Urbans-Hof Mosel-Saar-Ruwer Riesling ($10) 2004 Two Princes Nahe Riesling ($11) E-mail W. Blake Gray at wbgray(a)sfchronicle.com. Page F - 3 URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/07/06/WIG65JOL5F1.DTL -- ------------------------------ * * Dr. James Lee Ellingson, Adjunct Professor jellings(a)me.umn.edu * * University of Minnesota, tel: 651/645-0753 fax 651 XXX XXXX * * Great Lakes Brewing News, 1569 Laurel Ave., St. Paul, MN 55104 *