by Huon Hooke
Tasmania’s Pressing Matters is one of my favourites, producing riesling at four different sweetness levels, from dry to very sweet and labelled R0, R9, R69 and R139 (grams per litre of sugar). Off-dry wines make wonderful aperitifs or refreshers, and go with different foods. They’re especially useful paired with spicy Asian dishes, such as Thai fishcakes with chilli sauce. Off-dry wines also have the potential to win back some drinkers who’ve reacted against the sometimes hard, tart and forbidding, traditional bone-dry riesling style.