WineLovers Discussion Group

Was it a BYOB arranged by Salil and others or was it a restaurant-sponsored event, or Riesling Society, etc.? Sounds fabulous although with all those wines to taste it could be quite overwhelming. I was living in Germany in 1976 and remember the great vintage although I never had the chance to taste them with several decades of cellaring.

I think Crush Wine was main instigator, with some other shops (like Chambers) and some distributors also sponsoring.

http://www.rieslingfeier.com/

Thanks, Dale.

Oh, there is no chance that I would be able to organize something of this magnitude.

The idea came from Stephen Bitterolf of Crush, who did much of the gruntwork for this - I think Paul Grieco from Terroir/Hearth also was involved to some extent. The people/groups sponsoring it included a few importers (Skurnik, Wiest, Bowler), retailers (Moore Brothers, Crush, Chambers, Acker), and other wine writers (Lars Carlberg and John Gilman).

The whole weekend was meant to be a celebration of German Riesling, starting from the EMP dinner with Klaus Peter Keller and Katharina Prum, the seminar on Sat. morning I posted about with David Schildknecht and a few winemakers, a "Riesling crawl" with various free retailer tastings staggered around NYC with the various winemakers attending the event (I believe the Kellers, Prum, Thomas Haag from Lieser, Dorothee Zilliken, Florian Lauer and Andreas Adam), and then a crazy BYOB with a hundred or so Rieslingheads in attendance.

Just an absolutely amazing weekend, and every part of it I experienced (missed most of the 'Riesling crawl' aside from a few brief pours at Chambers) was really special.

The organization was quite remarkable too, especially for the BYOB where there were a few hundred crazy bottles flying around the room, many tables but most of NYC's top sommeliers (Levi Dalton, Paul Grieco, Aldo Sohm, John Slover and many, many others) were amazing in handling the bottles, keeping them to respective tables, managing pours, and pairing the wines appropriately as Stephen had wanted a progression for the meal from dry wines through to sweet dessert wines with the final cheese course.

Just to add to what Salil wrote, it was envisaged to be the Riesling equivalent of the annual La Paulée event that celebrates the wines of Burgundy.

Mark Lipton

Thanks for the replies. Be sure to post in advance on WLDG if they make it an annual event. Maybe I could time a trip to NYC to attend some of the events.

P.S. I believe I met Levi Dalton at an offline at Triomphe some years ago and I tasted with David Schildknecht in Raleigh once.

Stephen Bitterolf posted on my site about the second annual Rieslingfeier and added some more details about the festivities.

Of course you could all come visit me in CT and drink just as well!