Trocken is the German word for dry, and it’s legally controlled on wine labels there – but the designation differs from our interpretation. In Australia, dry riesling is typically bone-dry, mouth-puckering and racy. In Germany, dryness refers to the absence of perceptible sweetness – a compact between sugar and acidity. Balance, in other words. Sugar softens the intense acidity, offering ballast, mouthfeel and texture.
German wine law allows up to nine grams per litre of sugar in trocken wines, but only if it’s within two grams of the total acidity. That’s a binding rule for using 'trocken' on the label. With no such constraints, Australian winemakers seeking a sugar-acid balance tend to work off organoleptic judgements, with lab analysis an afterthought. Regular tasting towards the end of ferment is key, with the wine chilled at a given point to arrest the ferment and leave residual sugar (RS).
“I’m not sure what the residual sugar is on the wine yet,” says Bridget Mac, referring to her 2025 Werkstatt Riesling. “The number isn’t important to me; my focus is on whether the wine is balanced.” That wine comes from Mount Gambier, where limestone soils and the Southern Ocean’s lashing winds produce wines of striking tension. Prior releases have carried up to 17 grams per litre of sugar – well beyond the trocken threshold – while still finishing with an impression of dryness.
“Mount Gambier is seriously cool climate, and riesling is always the last to be picked – I have to leave some RS in these wines so that they are drinkable,” Bridget continues. “During vintage, I pretty much live at the winery, too scared to leave... I taste every few hours, which means I’m sometimes there at 2am. When the perfect moment hits, it’s crucial to stop the yeast. Too late, and there’s no way to get it back, like catching a sunset or sunrise.”
Tessa Brown, with her husband Jeremy Schmölzer, makes a suite of rieslings under the Vignerons Schmölzer & Brown label – ranging from dry, to trocken, to sweeter styles echoing German Prädikat levels. For her, balance is about both the wine itself and how the sugar balances with food. “I like to tear down the ‘it goes with Asian food, spicy food etc.’ trope about residual sugar. I say, ‘Have you been to Germany? Didn’t see many Thai restaurants, did you? You saw German people eating pork knuckles and sauerkraut and frites.’”
That balance with food is what Tessa calls “bliss-point flavours” – the nexus of sugar, salt and fat colliding with the wine. “With kabinett-style wines, think about oysters, fish crudo... where marine salt elements meet the sugar, the salt dries out the perception of sweetness. With spätlese styles, think about dishes where maybe melted cheese is doing a bit of heavy lifting, like a celeriac tart or a raclette melt... stronger flavours, more fat, more salt. When balanced, these wines have great versatility, and we’ve been denying ourselves permission to explore that wonder for far too long.”
At VS&B, they work with different ripeness levels, measured skin contact, a mix of warm and cool ferments, and lees treatment to shape texture and richness – residual sugar being key to integration. “Like any food, you can't have too much of one input,” Jeremy says. “Sweetness stops those sour or bitter elements dominating. Sweet orange juice is a little boring, but add some bitterness from the peel and you get marmalade, which, while still sweet, has a nice balance from the bitterness and texture. Similarly, lime juice is too sour pure, but add it to a G&T and you get an interplay of acidity, bitterness, sweetness and herbal flavours.”
A wine with residual sugar isn’t automatically off-dry or sweet. Acidity, phenolics and texture all affect perception. Food, too, reshapes the experience – just as tannin in a Chianti is ‘corrected’ by food. These wines aren’t always meant to stand alone. Whether more opulent or crisp, the role of sugar is increasingly important, particularly as more riesling is grown in cooler regions, such as Mount Gambier, Tasmania or the upper King Valley.
“I had a beautiful trocken riesling at [Melbourne's] City Wine Shop on Friday night,” adds Bridget. “The 2020 Christmann Idig GG from the Pfalz. No idea what the RS on this would have been. Doesn’t matter. The interplay of the slate minerality, herbal characters and texture really came together with the residual sugar. There would have been a missing frame had it not been there.”
