Riesling Mosel

[Redtrk]

I am in the 4th year of building a house here in my area just north of Cincinnati for the heirs of the Kaufmann's Dept Stores which you may know is now Macy's.
The wife of the home is the Granddaughter of the family that commissioned Frank Lloyd's most famous house Falling Water.

The owners love Riesling from the Mosel area of Germany which is sweet with a wonderful floral aroma.

I have ordered 12 gallons of Riesling juice but can't find a recipe and don't know what to use to acquire that similar taste. Do you have any clue what I would use to make a similar wine for them? I have PM'd a few members and have had no luck so I am bringing it to the open board. Please help!!!!!

 

[Deezil]

I'm getting 150lbs of riesling grapes in a few weeks and have been doing some research myself so maybe you're in luck? Can discuss here or you can PM me, whichever.. Also have a thread detailing a bit of my experience thusfar

Do you know the sweetness they prefer? Especially in the older regions like the Mosel area, they have a lot of classifications for the different residual sweetness levels.. I ask because the acidity tends to correspond with the sweetness desired..

I'll be making a 'late harvest' style (more of an american term) which im thinking is what you're looking for when you describe the "sweet with a wonderful floral aroma"

I'll also be fermenting in a basement, on a concrete floor, to keep the temps down - this'll hold onto more of those floral aromas you mentioned, along with the yeast selections mentioned in the thread linked above - i'm hoping to enhance those characteristics

R-HST was actually isolated from riesling grapes, its one of the yeasts im using but i'll be splitting the batch (hopefully 2, 4-gallon ferments) and running both R-HST & W15.. Blending later after some bench trials

If the TA isnt around .9 %, i'll probably adjust so that it is.. But that depends on the Brix/SG when i actually get the grapes.

"Cold soaking" the white grapes allows more of the polyphenols and tannins and such to leach from the skins but too long of a cold soak can lead to a harsh finished product because of the excessive tannin extraction.. I'm gonna try a 4hr cold soak on said-basement floor w/ a good dosage of so2 to keep bacterial/microbial activity & oxidation at bay... From what i've read, most theories suggest (not every white wine/riesling is cold soaked) a 2-6hr cold soak but no more than 18-24hrs usually for white grapes

Go-Ferm & Fermaid-O on on my additives list for sure.. OptiWhite & Booster Blanc too... Although im still reading into tannins on sweet white wines, im thinking its a no-go or a light touch..

What'd i miss?

 

[Rocky]

Rick, I am not sure I understand what you are asking but let me give it a whirl. There are two major rivers in the wine area of Germany, the Rhine and the Mosel and both have extensive Riesling vineyards. Mosel wines usually, not always come in a green bottle (Rhine wines usually come in a brown bottle). To add to your problem, there are many types of Rieslings made from these two area and others. If you go to a fully stock wine dealer you will see Mosel Rieslings marked "Kabinett" describing a wine from the main harvest, "Spatlese" meaning "late harvest" which are picked about a week after the main harvest, "Auslese" which means "select harvest" and describes a wine from grapes that are hand selected, "Beerenauslese" meaning "select berry harvest," "Trochenbeerenauslese" meaning "select dry berry (like raisins) harvest" and "Eiswein" which is wine from grapes that are frozen on the vine and then harvested.

With this all stated and considering that this is the Kaufmann family, I doubt if they are talking about either Kabinett or Spatlese. They probably mean Auslese or better, i.e. Beerenauslese (BA) or Trochenbeerenauslese (TBA) and very likely not Eiswein, which is more a dessert wine, as you are aware. If it were I, I would go to a good wine dealer and get a bottle of Riesling Auslese (or if you really want to spend the bucks a BA or TBA), chill it well and give it a taste. If you plan to make it for them, that is what you will be shooting to duplicate.

As far as taste is concerned, as you go up the line, the wines get sweeter. I always tasted "green apple" in the Mosel Rieslings that I drank when I was stationed in Germany. Good luck. Sounds like a neat project.

 

[Redtrk]

Well so far this is a good start. The wine she has told me about is a sweet wine with plenty of floral aroma.
WOW Rocky you have posed some serious questions that I need to ask her.
Deezil I will check out your thread and see if it lightens things up a bit. Thanks for the help so far!

 

[Bartman]

Out of curiosity (since I am in the construction business), why is it taking 4 years to build that house? Is it a one-man project? Or have they redesigned the entire thing at least once since construction started?

I hope you are outside the city limits, because here in Dallas if your project takes more than one year to build,your permit expires (technically) and the inspectors start getting antsy and difficult to deal with (or so I hear).

 

[Redtrk]

Out of curiosity (since I am in the construction business), why is it taking 4 years to build that house? Is it a one-man project? Or have they redesigned the entire thing at least once since construction started?

I hope you are outside the city limits, because here in Dallas if your project takes more than one year to build,your permit expires (technically) and the inspectors start getting antsy and difficult to deal with (or so I hear).

I'm just the Tinner on the job but have a lot of input. This is not just you basic house. It is a one of a kind where everything is precisely constructed from lumber that has been mostly recycled from something else. Every piece is hand built without anything off of a shelf. Every piece of lumber is cut and trimmed on site. I will try to post up some pictures when I have time. As for my part most of the roof are not flat or of a continuous pitch. For example the kitchen roof looks like a twisted noodle while the pool roof looks like an ocean wave. Now frame that or better yet try to put a standing seam roof on it! As fro my part there are several types of metals on the roof including steel, copper, and zinc.
It's been fun! (((Sarchasim)))
The architect is a complete loon who has now been fired. The owner wanted a one of a kind house like her grandparents had except she didn't have Frank Lloyd Wright, she had Greig Lloyd Wrong.
BTW there are no blueprints just hand sketches from the architect. IMO he has milked these people for over 2 Mil to date and I'm actually thinking about reporting him the the AIA. He has changed things several times and some things more than 3-4 times because he has put no afterthought into his ideas.