Roman Roth Riesling, Take 2

I'm a big fan of vintner Roman Roth's mission to draw fine riesling out of the Long Island soil, so I was inordinately excited when a bottle of his 2008 Grapes of Roth Riesling came through the mail. This is only the second riesling vintage for Roth, the first debuting last year.

The fruit source for the 2008 Riesling is 68% Split Rock Vineyard, located just east of Greenport, located on the far end of the North Fork (one does taste that maritime influence, and 32% is from Martha Clara Vineyards, located in the warmer Riverhead area. Roth describes the grapes as being perfectly ripe when he picked them. This would explain the marked increase in alcohol content. The 2007 came in at a super-low (for American wines) 9.6%. The 2008 graduates to 10.8%.

The project appears to be maturing, with significant differences in the two vintages. Fermentation was done in stainless steel. After racking , the wine sat on the fine lees till mid-January and was then filtered. Some Süssreserve was then added from the same lot.

If there is a common thread to Roth's riesling this early on in the game, it their metallic edge. One of the first things I wrote down while tasting this wine was "metal shavings." I didn't look at my 2007 note before tasting the 2008, but when I did check back I saw that I have written the same note, "metal shavings," last years. It's not a descriptor I use often, so that aspect of the juice must speak loudly to my palate.

I found the 2008 to be less fruity and instantly appealing than the 2007, but arguably more interesting. I wondered if it might change in a month or two, growing into something more complex. Most of the fruit came on the nose: light honeysuckle, lime, lemon, gooseberry, green apple, light tropical notes, white raspberry. When it passes the lips, lime and lemon are pretty much all you're going to find in terms of fruit, maybe some quinces and kumquat. The mineral and metal aspects dominate, all but swamping the fruit. It's a tight and controlled wine, very disciplined. Not that any of this is bad. It's a well-made wine, one suited to seafood and fish. But a touch more fruit to round it out wouldn't have hurt. I look forward to what Roth will fine in his grapes next summer.

Mr. 9.6%

Recently, Roman Roth, the talented Long Island winemaker, sent me a bottle of his 2007 Riesling. 2007! It seems to silly to point out the year, because it's the only vintage available, the first time Roth has attempted a Riesling out on the North Fork. According to Roth, 2007 was one of the best LI vintages ever, so he finally decided to make the Riesling everyone had been asking him for years. The fruit source wass Split Rock Vineyard, located just east of Greenport, which is owned by Michael Kontokosta and managed by Long Island Veteran Charles Flat. The yield was low, just two tons an acre. And the grapes were picked Oct. 5, 2007. (The wine is 100% Riesling.)

The result is quite delightful, a perfect wine for summer. The nose is light, with lemon, lime and floral notes and something that struck me as the smell of metal shavings. The palate showed many things: white peach, apricot, green grapes (yeah, I know, the grapes are green that made it, but that doesn't mean you're always going to get that taste in the wine), a little bubblegum. The acidity was good, the length not huge. But the complexity, while not vast, was more than I'm used to seeing in U.S. Rieslings.

One of the greatest qualities of the wine is its terrifically low alcohol content: 9.6%! That means that, even though the weather be hot, you can enjoy this wine for glass after glass, and not feel overwhelmed or heavy. That's something I look for in a summer wine, because, let's face it: wine drinking is not as pleasurable in the hot months as it is in the cool, because alcohol and stifling heat do not mix well. We want to feel light, fizzy and buoyant during summer, by whatever means possible. If the wine can help that along, latch on to that wine. I'll be latching on to this one a few more times this summer.