The wine was utterly delicious, a Riesling from Fallbrook in San Diego County, and it was startling on many levels.

The brand name was Olive Hill, the fruit was off very young vines, and it was a wine that the experts said simply couldn’t exist. That’s because wine scientists were then almost unanimously agreed that fine quality table wine couldn’t be made south of the Tehachapi Mountains, that the place was a virtual desert (just look at a map of the place, with its barren, open spaces and no connection to a major waterway, which then was deemed essential for table wines).

Sure, Callaway had already proven that Temecula, just 20 minutes north, could make some nice white wines, but this was Fallbrook, warm enough to become an avocado paradise. Riesling? Some one had to be kidding.

Yet a farmer by the name of Tony Godfrey had planted some Riesling in Fallbrook, tended it the way you would any fine wine grape, and then did the right thing: he harvested it when it seemed ripe, with proper flavors, acids, pH and so forth. And when I tried the wine some 25 years ago, I was amazed that it had clearly definable Riesling character, but with a twist.

The wine was not Germanic in any way. Not in the slightest. Yet it was so obvious that the wine was a Riesling, and one that displayed most distinctive aromas and flavors. It had a wild apple and Asian pear aroma, and a succulent but perfectly balanced taste that prompted me to buy a number of bottles and pour them for wine lovers who also were convinced that Fallbrook simply couldn’t do what they were tasting.

Olive Hill no longer grows wine grapes. Riesling was ahead of its time, and Godfrey, a talented farmer, had many other crops he could sell. Grapes became expendable, and the Olive Hill Riesling became just a memory.

But I had similar epiphanies with Riesling after that -- from (defunct) Ballard Canyon (Santa Barbara County), Trefethen (Napa Valley), Amity Vineyards (Oregon) Columbia (Washington), St. Chappelle (Idaho), and half a dozen properties in British Columbia. Recently, a number of Rieslings from California’s smallest appellation, Cole Ranch in Mendocino County, have startled me. Not to mention Peninsula Cellars in Michigan, properties in Ohio, New York, and Pennsylvania.

Although all these wines are miles different from the classic German versions and those from Austria and Alsace, they are distinctly Riesling in character and they deliver a fascination all their own.

Steve Pitcher, a wine writer and member of the German Wine Society of San Francisco, is a purist who believes that Germany produces the greatest Rieslings of all. Yet he does not disparage Rieslings from elsewhere, nor does he compare them to those from Germany.

In numerous articles on the grape variety and its ability to adapt to various soils and climes, and man’s ability to find in it the greatness of the variety complete with terroir distinctiveness, Pitcher has focused on the genetics of the plant. And how it can deliver uniqueness in each place.

That is, though he believes firmly in the greatness of German Riesling, he sees a vitality in the same grape as it is allowed to express itself in other climes, soils, and aspects.

The German Sweetness Dilemma

What’s fascinating about this is a little-known “problem” facing German Riesling and its makers: the wine may not be all that appealing to some consumers because it is too sweet! Some wine buyers (notably British and Australian) seem to prefer bone-dry wine. The Germans have a category for that. It’s called Trocken. But under the German wine law, such a wine can have up to 0.9 percent residual sugar – 9 grams per liter. (The once-dry Halbtrocken wines may contain up to 1.8 percent residual sugar.)

Based on warmer growing conditions over the last decade (witness the high percentage of supposedly great vintages over that period), the acids in German wines may not be as high as they have been, and the pHs probably haven’t been as low. The wines are slightly more succulent than those who prefer bone-dry wines desire.

And thus we are seeing a fascinating phenomenon: sales of German Riesling in the United Kingdom are rising, but so are sales of Australian Rieslings. And the main difference (other than price) between the two wines? The former have slight amounts of residual sugar; the latter are bone-dry. They are crisp to the point of being steely, minerally, and work well with many foods that would not take kindly to most German wines.

Curiously, the historical perspective here appears to be at play. The Australians’ partiality for bone-dry Riesling clearly came from the fact that former residents of Great Britain settled that nation, and they developed the dry style of wine mainly for themselves. And the wines of Germany, as great as they are, don’t always fill the bill when a completely dry wine is desired.

Yet not all German Riesling is Trocken or Halbtrocken. And its greatness is undisputed by wine lovers. So what’s the “need” for other Rieslings?

Pure and simply, it’s the diversity, the fact that a great grape can deliver its greatness in many forms. Is there a place for Napa and Washington Cabernet Sauvignon as well as Bordeaux? Of course. Is there is a fascination for New Zealand, Dry Creek, and South African Sauvignon Blanc in addition to those of the Loire? Clearly there is.

So why should anyone decry the absolute fascination others and I have for Rieslings from California, Michigan, Ohio, Virginia, or even Indiana? Indeed, I just had my first Chilean Riesling the other day and it was, uh, fascinating.

One might ask: was it better than a German Riesling? Such comparisons have no meaning whatever. They are different things.

Okay. Name Just One Great U.S. Riesling.

Someone might complain that great American Rieslings aren’t widely available. That’s a spurious argument. Look at APPELLATION AMERICA’s website and you’ll see that you can get a lot of them via interstate shipping.

Someone could ask me to name a great U.S. Riesling. You’re right, I can’t. That’s because I could name 30 or 40 truly great U.S. Rieslings off the top of my head. If I looked back in my tasting book for the last couple of years, the number would jump to twice that.

As for suggesting that Riesling “doesn't do well here“, well, anyone who makes that statement is completely myopic and hasn’t done any serious tasting of domestic Rieslings, which can be startlingly delightful. Moreover, there are MANY German Riesling producers who make pure garbage and since the