Great dry Rieslings 2002-2007

Last Thursday night, the night before the breakfast filmed in German opener, I took part in a thoroughly revealing blind tasting of five top dry German Rieslings with F X Pichler’s Kellerberg Riesling Smaragd from the Wachau in Austria. At the suggestion of David Schildknecht, who was also there, we looked at a succession of recent vintages.

Our host, Rheinhessen producer Klaus Peter Keller, suggested that we exclude 2003 because this hot year was so exceptional in every way, so we tasted first the 2002s (all mixed at random), then every vintage from 2004 to 2007 (also blind). While we...