Unbottled – Julien Renard Riesling

Yet, this is not your regular Moselle Riesling. Instead it comes from shooting star Julien Renard. Julien has a lot of small plots ammounting to a total of 1,2 ha. This also means that it is quite hard to get. Luckily, I found a bottle. If you are interested in more about Julien you can listen to the Wein für Wein podcast episode.

The grapes for the Julien Renard Riesling come from vines older than 20 years. They grow on slate. After a manual harvest, the grapes are pressed with a lot of whole clusters. The wine spends 17 months on the yeast in stainless steel as well as used oak barrels. The wine is not filtered, not fined and no sulphur was added. The overall SO2 level is 28 mg / l. However, Julien is keen on mentioning that his wine is neither organic, nor a natural wine.

Riesling from a stone

The wine starts with a little “typical” Riesling fruit. Yet, after the initial hint of fruits, the mineral flavours come to the front. You can also find some overripe apples and fruit skins. In the taste, you can find a combination of green apples, fruit skins and minerals reminiscent of slate. There is a pronounced acidity running through the whole taste. The wine is very straight with some grip on the palate. I tried the wine from this rather unconventional Lobmeyr No. 287Ident III glass which worked very well.

Chiocciole, Salsiccia, mangold

For a food pairing, I went with a high fat dish. Originally made with Orecchiette, I used Chiocciole made from Kamut grain. For the sauce, I cleared the mangold in the garden and combined it with Salsiccia. The acidity of the wine managed to cut through the fat of the meat and the olive oil. This way it was really the perfect pairing.