What perverse creatures customers are. There you are, offering them a wine that will solve all their problems of what will go with what – and will they drink it? Even though you tell them that it’s wonderful, they’ll love it and it’s just what they need?

Exactly. Perverse. Especially as the wine in question is Riesling, beloved of all sommeliers and, as we know, ideal with modern food. How on earth do you persuade customers that it won’t poison them?

The answer seems to be that you have to try harder. Hamish Anderson of the Tate Group argues that this is the case with any unfashionable wine. ‘It’s easy to have a passive list, full of familiar wines that sell off the list. But it’s more rewarding to put the effort into selling something unfamiliar – and it’s added value for the customer if they have something new and enjoy it.’

And added value, which makes a customer remember a restaurant as something special rather than just something that’s routinely good, is what every restaurant needs to offer now. ‘It’s very important for us to put our best foot forward and make a greater impression,’ says Anderson.

Nobody pretends that Riesling is easy to sell. It still has an image problem: European Riesling equals sweet, in most consumers’ minds, and sweet equals bad. Only Australian Riesling manages to escape this automatic damnation.

And of course styles are all over the place: in Germany Riesling used to be sweet but is now dry, apart from in the minds of the few Riesling fanatics in Britain, who prefer it sweetish – what the Germans call ‘fruity’; in Alsace it used to be dry but is now quite often sweet; in Australia it is mostly dry and citrus; in New Zealand sometimes it’s sweetish; and in Austria dry, sometimes quite alcoholic, and often more mineral than grapey or spicy.

Nobody pretends that Riesling is easy to sell. It still

has an image problem: European Riesling equals sweet

in most consumers’ minds, and sweet equals bad

From the sommelier’s point of view this gives a hugely varied palette with which to work; but from the consumer’s point of view it equals confusion. ‘You have to explain Riesling,’ says Robert Lee of Baan Thai, ‘you have to explain that it has acidity and minerality and comes at different levels.’ That, for him, is a downside. ‘People are comfortable with Sauvignon Blanc,’ he concludes.

The restaurants that do well with Riesling are those that see the necessity of explaining it as an opportunity rather than a disadvantage. They often sell it by the glass, as at Hakkasan, where the sommeliers will say to dubious customers: ‘Try it and if you don’t like it we’ll bring you something else.’ That makes it risk-free for the diner, and it’s also good service, which is what people want these days.

At The Harrow at Little Bedwyn, Marlborough, Wiltshire, Roger Jones has Australian Riesling by the glass, and finds that ‘it flies out’. In fact, it flies out so fast that he has to ration what he offers by the glass: never Alsace, for example.

‘The problem with Alsace is that we sell so much. It’s difficult to keep it long enough to show at its best… We have a nice little run of Clos Ste Hune from Trimbach and we’ve sat on them for a long time; our prices are sometimes cheaper than retail.’ If he offered them by the glass, he says, they’d go in a flash and it would be difficult to replace them.

At The Harrow, as everywhere, people who order Alsace know what they’re doing; though Jones does believe that once people have tried it they come back for more. Rieslings he does have by the glass include: Pewsey Vale, The Contours, Eden Valley; Inniskillin Icewine; Henschke Noble Rot; and Tamar Ridge Botrytis. And you can have a flight of three dessert wines (50ml each) for a tenner. How much fun is that?

The question of where a Riesling has to come from in order to sell is an interesting one. ‘Australians are never a problem,’ says Jones, even though ‘we charge proportionately more for Australian. People have no qualms about paying £48 for a bottle of Australian Riesling.’ Alsace, as he says, is popular, and he has just one Austrian Riesling, from Loimer. (Grüner Veltliner is often a more popular choice from Austria, in both on- and off-trade.) At Baan Thai neither Clare nor Austrian will shift. And as for German…

THE HARD SELL

German Riesling is still the Cinderella. ‘Each dish is matched with a glass of wine,’ says Jones, ‘and we try to push people to extremes. We’ve tried German Rieslings by the glass, but they won’t go for them. Ernie Loosen came over for a dinner last year. It was sold out, and they all loved the wines. We thought that when they came back they’d order German Riesling, and when we saw them next we said to them, “What German wine would you like tonight?” They all said no, and went back to Australian. It’s not the price: we’re giving them away. We have Loosen 1981 at £58, and we never sell it. We’ve never sold more than six Germans.’

‘You have to explain Riesling. You have to

explain that it has acidity and minerality and

comes at different levels’ – Robert Lee

At Tate Britain, which has long been a destination restaurant with an older clientele that loves wine and has been coming for years, German Riesling never quite went away – although it’s still difficult to sell. There are 10 or 11 German Rieslings on the list, and three of them are in half bottles. ‘Those halves probably account for 40-50% of all the German Riesling we sell,’ says Anderson. But there’s no German Riesling on the list at Tate Modern, which has a younger and more mixed clientele and is less of a destination. ‘It changes what the wine list has to do. Australian Riesling is easier, and not too challenging.’

At Hakkasan in London, Christine Parkinson advises being clever with names. ‘St Urbanshof has an Urban Riesling, which sounds streetwise and cool.’ Sister restaurant Yauatcha has Riesling Unplugged from Martin Tesch in the Nahe – another clever name.

Hakkasan also has two Austrian Rieslings, one of which is in magnum. ‘We always have a page of magnums,’ explains Parkinson. With magnums it’s usually a bigger table, and the host wants his problems solved. Unless they have the budget to order Burgundy or Bordeaux they’ll ask the sommelier, and the sommelier probably recommends Riesling,’ she adds.

The Hakkasan list is organised by themes since, says Parkinson, ‘nobody is going to read all 400 selections’. There is a page of biodynamic wines and a page of mature wines, which always includes some Australian Rieslings from the 1990s. ‘Headings like “tangy, floral” can help to sell Riesling,’ she points out.

There’s another page of signature wines, from people with whom they have long-term relationships, and there are always some Rieslings on that. Plus there’s a wine and food page, of wines that go with everything. In a Chinese restaurant this has to be an extremely good idea – and a simple one too.

MATCH IT, SHIFT IT

At Tate Britain, meanwhile, there are recommended wines with the set menu, and a list of specials. ‘There are plenty of points other than the list [at which] to buy our wines,’ explains Anderson.

‘The problem with Alsace is that we

sell so much. It’s difficult to keep it long

enough to show at its best’ – Roger Jones

Another factor in selling Riesling, besides the list, is the attitude of the kitchen. Yes, most Riesling is extremely adaptable, but few restaurateurs would take the attitude of Jones that: ‘The wine must come first. These guys have spent years making the wine, and all you have to do is throw a bit of turbot into a pan. We can look at a wine and adapt the dish to it.’

In Bordeaux the Shan brothers of Au Bonheur du Palais have no hesitation in adapting the spicing of their Szechuan cuisine to individual wines, and came back from a visit to Egon Müller utterly in love with his Rieslings – but more about the Shans in a later issue of Imbibe.

Perhaps it’s not unfair to say that, ultimately, if a restaurant sees food and wine as two separate issues it can hardly be surprised if its customers do the same, and stick to Chardonnay.

Editorial feature from Imbibe Magazine - May / June 2009