COVER STORY:


Here’s your ticket to ride a magical mystery tour
of the world’s greatest white wine regions

With apologies to John, Paul, George and Ringo, we present our version of The White Album; we like to call it The White Wine Album. The idea for this concept issue came to us about a year ago when we noticed a disproportionate hubbub in the wine press about red wine. Not that there’s anything wrong with red wine, but we thought it was right and fair to somehow pay homage to one of the less-pigmented wines in our midst (the Rosé Wine Album issue will have to wait).

We decided to go to four regions renowned for making white wine almost exclusively and shed some light on these areas that are comfortable in their white-grape skins. Tom Reagan, a frequent contributor to this magazine, was dispatched to the Mosel-Saar- Ruwer region of Germany and to France’s Alsace region. Eric Arnold, who is writing book on New Zealand winemaking, was recruited for a dispatch from that island nation. For the Loire Valley, our associate editor, Steve Stevens had a chat with renowned Loire Valley winemaker Nicolas Joly. Steve also got the perspectives of several prominent sommeliers here and abroad on the expanding role Loire Valley wines play in the dining room.

In the end, each writer came back with surprisingly similar perspectives. Besides sharing chilly climates (imperative for developing crisp acidity), every region has is its oldschool traditionalists — even youthful New Zealand. Each region also has its more progressive innovators, including winemakers in the Mosel, where they’ve been making wine for millennia.

All regions are more famous for one or two types of white wine — Mosel with its Rieslings, New Zealand with its Sauvignon Blancs, Loire for its Chenin Blancs and Sauvignon Blancs and Alsace for its Rieslings, Pinot Gris and Gewürztraminers. It’s worth noting, however, that these are not the only grape varieties in these locales. You won’t have to dig too deeply to find a steely Riesling or racy Gewürztraminer from New Zealand or a seductive Pinot Blanc, Muscat or nearly forgotten Sylvaner from Alsace.

These lesser-known selections — and all the wines covered in this special package of stories — are ones not to overlook as you stretch your palate to include more white wine, especially at the dinner table. After all, if you really want to enjoy a meal, you need wines that don’t clobber everything on your plate. Save the overbearing monster reds for another time; open more whites today. See the light and enjoy a lighter shade of wine in your glass soon.

— Gil Kulers

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