Elisa De Luca writes they say people “fall into” the wine trade, and that was certainly the case for me. My first job in the industry came before my love for wine – a sad state of affairs which was thankfully rectified in the story you’ll read below. Nine years on, I find myself working at Berry Bros. & Rudd, where I get to spend my days combining two of my lifelong loves: words and wine.
Riesling: a romance
This is a love letter in three parts.
Part one: a horror story
It started over a decade ago. The setting: an unassuming, slightly grotty student flat in York. Threadbare sofas, magic eye posters, pub glasses everywhere – you get the idea, pure university charm at its finest. We were cracking open a bottle of wine.
Assured by a university roommate that it “must be good, my mum sent it”, we drank.
It was awful.
And that was my first experience of Riesling.
We finished it anyway – of course we did, we were students. But that one bottle earmarked Riesling in my brain as a Definitely Unpleasant Drink. It was promptly filed away with cheap perry, paint-stripper-esque vodka, and tequila with limp lime wedges that didn’t quite wipe revulsion from your tastebuds.
Part two: an obsession
Three years, two jobs and a step into the drinks trade later, there it sat: my second glass of Riesling. It had been handed to me on a Friday afternoon, by a fairly new friend who was adamant that I just had to try this.
Needless to say, I was dubious. Then I tasted it.
It was Trimbach’s Riesling Réserve, and it blew my mind. The brightness! The concentration! Those complex, winding threads of white peach, apple, and smokiness I didn’t even know wine could have. The thrill of citrus, and blossom, and honey, and flint – and something else, something a little edged, slightly grating, in the very best of ways.
At the time, all I knew was: I was in love. Not with all wine, that would come later. But for now, Riesling was enough.
From there I was off. Alsace? I devoured it: Zind-Humbrecht, Hugel, Marcel Deiss. Then elsewhere: the steep slopes of the Mosel; the cool shores of Tasmania; New York’s Finger Lakes to Canada’s valleys. I’d been propelled onto an international voyage, and Riesling was captain of the ship. I drank each new, delicious bottle I found with the sort of glee you’d expect from Augustus Gloop, scooping up handfuls of chocolate river.
My love of wine had, finally, ignited. Bone-dry Rieslings kept my heart for a while: those rich, kaleidoscopic bursts of zest and florals and kerosene-spice.
But soon I was straying. I discovered off-dry styles and through those, the beauty behind a good wine-and-food pairing: Thai food and Rieslings with residual sugar, the sweet and sour of each elevating the other. Then, bottles that were sweeter still: syrupy, cavity-inducing ice wines, served bitterly cold and with the kind of purity that puckers, soothes and caresses all in one.
I’ve some spectacular Rieslings. I’ve some horrors, too. But that’s the nature of this grape. At its best, it’s pure alchemy, something unapologetically bold. Unapologetically bold, it’ll demand your attention with an explosion of sunlight, stone and fruit, its flavours so vivid they could make colour flash in front of your eyes, like a hit of wine-induced synaesthesia.
At its worst… well. I still remember that bottle in York.
Part three: a marriage
To the present day. The third part of this romance isn’t over; it’s still being written.
I’ve branched out. Other grapes have captured my attention; other regions, too. But Riesling? Riesling is home. Riesling is the grape that keeps me coming back – the grape that reminds me that I do love wine, even at the end of a gruelling set of tasting exams, or a particularly heavy weekend.
Maybe it’s the range. There really is just so much to discover, from razor-sharp to rich and nectar-sweet, from the punches of petrol to the crisp salinity. Riesling spells out unpredictability, exploration: the joy of finding something new in every bottle.
Or maybe, it’s the memories.
Evenings in German schlosses, sipping heritage Rieslings by flickering candlelight. Tastings in cellars deep beneath the streets of London, with winemakers eager to share their newest, very kerosene-heavy experiments. A university flat, the laughter and the cries of “Who would like this?”. Or just that one Friday evening, the very first time I tasted a Riesling that made me stop mid-sentence.
That friend who handed it to me? I married him.
I can’t put that entirely down to Riesling, but it certainly played a part in that love story, too.
Photo of 'the wine that started it all: Trimbach’s Riesling Réserve' was taken for Berry Bros & Rudd by Krystian Krzewinski.
