There’s no wine region I enjoy visiting more than Alsace.  It’s beautiful, of course – and not just the half-timbered houses around which a profusion of flowers seem to float, or the grand hillside vineyards romping up to the forested Vosges mountains, always somehow bigger and more imposing in scale than those of Burgundy. The growers are fascinating characters, too, as if their historical and geographical position, wedged between (and much fought-over by) France and Germany, has given them an independence of thought which eludes those with a more settled position in each wine culture.  Then there’s the wines. It’s commonplace to say that Alsace wines are underappreciated -- but it’s true. For me, no white wine region can offer more diversity and intrigue than Alsace, nor does any single regional range of white wines appeal more to my palate...

Summary:  Riesling isn’t the first grape we think of when considering “international varieties.” Yet it thrives from the suntraps of Napa Valley to the cool valleys of the Antipodes. In this WSG Live, we will briefly examine the origins of Riesling, trace its early spread through Germany, and then zero in on the surprising range of regions where it thrives today: Alsace, Austria, Luxembourg, Northern Italy, the U.S. West Coast, Michigan, and New York, as well as Australia