Ahh, summer is fast approaching and you know what that means, crisp refreshing whites and Rose season. I like to think of these wines as boat wines.  If you don't know what I mean then lets think of them as summer sippers.  Crisp, light and refreshing. 
While a lot of people will be reaching for those Sauvignon Blancs whether from New Zealand, Loire Valley France, or California.  The adventurous may be reaching for Verdejo, Albarino and Godello from Spain, these are some of my favorites right now.  I will be reaching for the Charta Riesling from the Rheingau, or the lovely Spatlese Trockens from the Mosel. 
The reasons are simple, these wines are incredible values, light, clean and refreshing and great with food.  But the thing that intrigues me most is the wide variety of styles offered by German wines.  A lot of you already know that Riesling come in all shapes and sizes with varying degrees of residual sugar (the sugar left behind during the fermentation process, giving the wines sweetness and body.  What a lot of you may not know is that for the last 20 years or so Germans have become obsessed with the dry to bone dry styles of this grape.  So much in fact that there is some worry that the Germans will stop producing the off-dry to sweet styles because their palates have changed.
If you're not drinking German Rieslings this summer you are missing out on some truly amazing stuff.  A $15 dollar bottle can often drink like a $30-$40 dollar wine from California or France. 
 
Here are a few of my favorites right now
 
2005 Weingut Gutzler "GS", a dry style from the Rheingau
2005 Barth's Charta Riesling, a dry style that goes through rigorous regulations as a member the the Charta Association, which is a growers association dedicated to the dry styles of this grape.
2006 Robert Weil, Charta from Kiedrich Graffenberg.
2006 Blees Ferber, Trittenheimer Apotheke, Mosel Spatlese Trocken.  This is a style which is late harvested very ripe grapes that is simply fermented all the way to dry.  Really cool, wine geeky stuff.
So serve up something different this summer and try this incredible juice.
Cheers
Dustin Jones
Director of Education, VinVillage.com