The CSM Riesling magician

Wendy Stuckey won’t say so herself, but I will: The Rieslings being made at Washington state’s Chateau Ste Michelle (CSM) – the largest producer of Riesling in the world, at more than one million cases per year – are better than ever, and the Australian transplant obviously has had a delicate yet decisive hand in that. There is a vibrancy and tension in CSM Rieslings that weren’t there before Stuckey’s arrival.

No doubt, the pre-Stuckey Rieslings were expertly made, most of them in an off-dry style that emphasised fleshy tropical and yellow stone fruit flavours and appealed to a wide...