What to cook with Riesling? Three styles, three dishes and plenty of spice.

Why Riesling loves food

Riesling is fragrant and aromatic, with high acidity that keeps it fresh and lets it cut through rich or oily food. Its aromas often recall citrus, ginger and lemongrass, which is why both sommeliers reach for lime, chili and coriander in their cooking. Mirroring those tangy, exotic notes in a dish is one of the easiest ways to make a pairing sing.

Riesling is a fairly confined variety. Germany has close to half of the world’s plantings, and it is also important in Alsace, Austria and Australia, where German settlers brought it in the 1800s. Andreas and Fredrik discuss how German Riesling recovered its reputation after the era of cheap, sweet export wines that were often not Riesling at all, and why top dry Riesling is still a bargain compared with great Burgundy or Bordeaux.

Off-dry Mosel Kabinett with duck and red curry

Andreas brings a traditional Kabinett from the grey slate slopes of the Mosel, light and crisp with a balancing touch of natural sweetness. A Kabinett is picked fairly early, and its fermentation is stopped before all the grape sugar turns to alcohol, so the wine is lower in alcohol and has residual sugar rather than added sugar.

His dish: honey and ginger-glazed duck breast with crisp skin and pink flesh, served with a deliberately fiery homemade red curry sauce with coconut milk. He keeps the sauce separate so the duck does not overcook. His point is simple and useful: a touch of sweetness in the wine tames chili heat, which is why off-dry Riesling is such a good friend to spicy Asian food. He also argues that wines people call dessert wines are often better with savory dishes than with puddings. He salts the duck skin in advance to dry it out, starts the breasts skin-down in a dry pan to render the fat, and balances his curry paste with brown sugar, just as sweetness balances heat in Southeast Asian cooking.

Dry Clare Valley Riesling with crab tostadas

Fredrik goes for the opposite style: a dry, crisp, delicate Riesling from Clare Valley in South Australia, full of lime and citrus. He makes crab tostadas: fried tortillas topped with guacamole, crab mixed with tomato, coriander and lime, lettuce, onion and jalapeño. Bright acidity, fresh shellfish and lime make a natural match.

Along the way he explains why Australian producers try to keep their Riesling grapes shaded. Lots of sun can bring out the petrol, or petroleum, note in Riesling, which some European drinkers enjoy but many Australians see as a fault.

Austrian Riesling with smoked trout

A surprise third wine arrives: a single-vineyard Riesling from Weingut Knoll, from the Pfaffenberg site in the Kremstal, next door to the Wachau. It is a little richer and broader than the other two, with ripe yellow lemon notes. Served with smoked rainbow trout, it shows how Riesling’s crystalline acidity and perfume work with smoky fish, a combination the two Swedes grew up with.

The hosts also talk about mature Riesling, which keeps its freshness for decades thanks to high acidity. Hear about the oldest Rieslings Andreas has tasted.

Duck or crab: who wins?

The banter is as spicy as the curry, with jokes about boomers, backpacking and a rather unusual AI-made poster. In the end the crew tastes both dishes with both wines and chooses a favorite. Watch the episode to find out whether Fredrik’s crab tostadas or Andreas’ glazed duck takes the Riesling crown. Fredrik worries his crab might look too sophisticated for the crew, while Andreas trusts his fragrant curry.