How to stop drinking Riesling
Explore five routes to new wines, starting with what you already love about Riesling. Seven bottles make the differences tangible. You may not find a replacement for your favourite wine, but you might find your next good reason to open something different.
1. Love the acidity? Try Furmint.
If lively acidity is what you enjoy most in Riesling, Furmint is an interesting next step. The grape is known in regions including Tokaj and Slovenian Styria. Instead of reaching for the same bottle, compare that familiar freshness with a different set of fruit flavours.
Kobal’s Furmint Lees-Aged from Slovenia offers quince and green apple. It matures on fine lees: the fine yeast sediment left after fermentation. Start with it over a fish or poultry dinner. For more texture, put Kobal’s Furmint Skin Contact beside it. Contact with the grape skins gives this wine a different feel in the mouth. One grape, two approaches: pay particular attention to that difference in texture.
Furmint Lees-Aged · Haloze
▸ After-work mineral reset.▸ Quince. Chamomile. Ginger.▸ 35-year vines. Marl slopes. Haloze’s steep marl terraces lock in acidity, so this Šipon stays brisk after a...
Furmint Skin Contact · Haloze
▸ 35-year vines. Marl terraces.▸ Quince. Melon. Acacia.▸ Quietly serious skin-contact. When someone asks for something different, Slovenian skin-contact Furmint from 35-year vines on Haloze’s...
2. Love the aroma? Sauvignon Blanc and Traminer.
For some people, Riesling’s appeal starts with its fruity, floral aroma. Kobal’s Sauvignon Blanc Skin Contact offers a new direction to explore, with lychee, gooseberry and passion fruit.
Andreas Gsellmann’s Traminer Skin Contact from Burgenland has different accents: honey, quince and caramel. These are flavour and aroma descriptions, not a promise that the wine tastes sweet. Choose Sauvignon for that exotic-fruit direction, or Traminer if you are curious about its spicier, riper notes. With spicy Asian food, the difference becomes an interesting comparison at the table.
Sauvignon Blanc Skin Contact · Haloze
▸ 35-year vines. Marl slopes.▸ Lychee. Gooseberry. Grass.▸ Mouthwatering acidity. Fifteen days on skins turn Sauvignon’s usual grass into deeper layers of lychee and gooseberry....
Traminer Skin Contact · Neusiedlersee
▸ Aromatic downtime.▸ Roses vs Salt▸ Reitacker parcel. Lake breeze. Skin-contact Traminer from the Reitacker slope in Gols resets after work with rosewater lift, tea-like...
3. Want something familiar and rounder? Pinot Blanc.
A discovery does not have to mean a dramatic change of style. Weißburgunder is the German name for Pinot Blanc, a grape familiar from German vineyards too. Andreas Gsellmann’s Goldberg comes from Austria’s Burgenland.
Ripe apricot, nectarine and peach describe a rounder fruit profile. This wine does not have to imitate Riesling to appeal to you. Try it with a light meal and ask which you want that evening: the direct acidity of your usual Riesling, or this softer fruit character.
Weissburgunder Goldberg · Burgenland
▸ Cool-slope calm.▸ 2008 vines on Goldberg.▸ Ready for chicken schnitzel. Feierabend needs clarity, not heft. This cool-slope Weissburgunder was picked early, saw six hours...
4. Love a mineral impression? Garganega.
Veneto also offers a restrained style described as mineral. Garganega is the main grape of classic Soave. Minerality describes a tasting impression here, not a piece of rock dissolved in the wine.
Cavazza’s Creari brings quince and apricot together with a stony, mineral description. This is our candidate for anyone who is not looking for the loudest fruit. Try it with seafood, pasta or risotto and decide whether this quieter direction accompanies the food in the way you enjoy with Riesling.
Garganega Single Vineyard · Veneto
▸ Quince. Sea salt. Stony.▸ 2-ha limestone island vines.▸ Made for herby sea bass. South-west Garganega at 240 m on rare limestone sharpens the wine’s...
5. Enjoy a little sweetness with freshness? Sauvignon Moelleux.
If the combination of a little sweetness and fresh acidity is what you love in Riesling, look for that balance rather than simply another grape. Moelleux describes a wine with perceptible residual sweetness.
Lola from Vignobles Lassagne is a Sauvignon Blanc Moelleux from Bordeaux. Grapefruit, peach and nectarine accompany its gentle sweetness. Try it with blue cheese or dessert. What matters is whether sweetness and freshness work together for you, not whether the label says Riesling again.
Sauvignon Blanc Moelleux · Bordeaux
▸ 0.6-ha plot. River lift.▸ Grapefruit. Peach. Mango.▸ Roquefort & walnut baguette ready. Fermentation stops at 15 g/L sugar, keeping Lola Sweet playful rather than...
Do not stop. Choose more consciously.
Start with the quality that matters most to you: acidity, aroma, rounder fruit, a mineral impression or a little sweetness. Compare two different bottles with a meal first, then explore the others on other evenings. That turns seven labels into a clearer idea of your own preferences.
We have brought these seven wines together in a tasting set for you. Taste, compare and choose your personal favourites.
Beyond Riesling (7 Bottles)
Seven wines selected for the WYNCH Journal article How to Stop Drinking Riesling: a journey from Furmint and skin-contact whites to textured, aromatic and sweet styles.
