The Best Sweet Riesling From Corney & Barrow

I love sweet wines. I like muscat grapes, dessert wines, cocktails such as vodka and orange and Baileys. I enjoy Prosecco and cava and Champagne as an aperitif. Most reds are strong and dry and bore me, so I am always looking for a medium sweet, a sweet, a sparkling a pink wine.

I was in heaven when I went to a wine tasting hosted by Corney and Barrow. First the venue is a delight, and easy to find. It's a hidden gem. We walked from crowded Liverpool Street station, which has McDonalds, a Caffe Nero with no toilet, and a large Wetherspoons pub (later you can read my previous post on the station). From the busy street outside we disappeared into a pedestrian alley, into a tree lined square with a view of the Gherkin, then through lanterns bordering the stairs with heaters overhead which looked like torches, reminiscent of a Roman stage set.

In the secluded, elegant candle-lit darkness was the Corney and Barrow Restaurant. Beyond that the private room with four wines. At the start was a table of Rieslings from 2015, only a year ago, the new wines, and already Corney and Barrow are running out of their allocation.

I'd had Riesling before. I have studied about 20 hours and then a day at WSET (Wine and Spirit Eduction Trust) taking the level one exam which is roughly equivalent to an NVQ (vocational qualification for people serving wines in shops or restaurants). My husband has taken levels two and three and is studying for the diploma which consists of about nine exams taken over two years or longer. So I am forever hearing, "You can smell the petrol in Riesling".

In the Sixties and Seventies, like the rest of the British wining and dining world, I was into sweet wines and drank Mateus Rose, Black Tower, and had no idea of any regions nor any grapes.

Later, it must be the case that most of the Rieslings I have tasted in my short knowledgeable era of wine tasting have come from Alsace. I have now, thanks to Corney and Barrow, discovered the Rieslings from the Mosel region. I am told that the Mosel region consists of blue slate banks on three rivers, and the region was known by the names of the three rivers and areas, until somebody decided to simplify the name to make it more memorable. So now the region and the wine growing area are called simply Mosel.

I must have tried a dozen wines, started with the driest ending with the sweetest, and every one of them was delicious. Just to see whether I was simply in a good mood, I went over to the other three sets of wines, dry reds. Did I like all of them? No. Not one of them.

I was most interested to hear about wines grown on the side of Mount Etna. Fascinating.

However, if I had to choose a wine to drink or buy it would now be a Riesling from the Mosel.
Corner and Barrow have several restaurants and attached bars with extensive wine lists. You can also buy wine from them. They have offices in London, other parts of England, Edinburgh, Hong Kong and Singapore. You can also find them on Facebook, twitter and Instagram.
www.candbscene.co.uk is their blog.
www.corneyandbarrow.com
More about the restaurant and bar in my next post.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.