I like sweet wine and I am man enough to admit it!

This is the time of year when I'm opening Rieslings; hot and humid weather seems to call for the lightest, crispest, cool-to-cold wines possible. For many of us, that means Riesling, though Sauvignon Blanc, Chenin Blanc and Pinot Grigio (to name a few) could probably answer the call of thirst just as effectively.

But Riesling is one of the fastest growing white varietals in the US marketplace and has been for years. "Wait!" I can hear some protest, "I don't like sweet wine." Well, that's just fine with me. I do like sweet wine and I'm man enough to admit it.

But Riesling doesn't have to be sweet: the Aussies in particular have brought a lot of very nice Riesling into the US, most of which is relatively dry. The Austrians too make excellent dry Riesling; I drink those too. But I've long believed that Rieslings are brilliant food wines, especially when they're a little bit sweet. Why? Because, for one, many popular dishes have some sweetness to them, including many Asian cuisines. Heck, some chefs finish their marinara with a secret dose of sugar. When the ingredients on a plate are sweeter than the wine they're accompanying, the wine can seem tart and even slightly bitter to some people.

Moreover, I love spicy foods and the heat receptors in the mouth, the ones that tell you something spicy is "hot", can actually be fooled by something sweet, just the same way they can be cooled by dairy products. A sweet wine can douse the fire from that Thai Crazy Salad or an overdose of somebody's hot barbeque sauce.

Riesling too has the remarkable ability to be loaded with aromas and flavors even when very light weight, even when it is not particularly ripe. A typical German Riesling from the Mosel Valley usually has less than ten percent alcohol, yet the wine is chockfull of flavor and character. You've probably never tasted a Chardonnay with less than ten percent alcohol, but I can assure you that there's nothing very likeable about such a tart, unripe Chardonnay.

And Riesling usually exhibits lip-smacking tartness, at least when it's grown in the world's favored spots for the grape: Germany, Austria, Alsace in France, a few cool spots in Australia, lots of places in New Zealand and the Pacific Northwest, Michigan and New York.

Plenty of other white wines have that tart propensity too, but few seem to balance it so skillfully against rich fruitiness as the Germans. Their favored vineyards exist at sometimes-dizzying slopes, facing mostly south, and angled to soak up every ray of sun in an otherwise cool climate. Without their perfect vineyards, German Rieslings would be tart only, and couldn't convey their cornucopia of flowers and fruits: peach, apricot, nectarine, apple, pear, mango, pineapple, lemon, lime and orange.

And whether sweet or dry, the extreme tartness of many so-called sweet German Rieslings is such that the words "sweet" and "tart" quickly lose their meanings. As my eldest daughter has pointed out for years, her favorite German wines start sweet and finish dry. And that, on this mid-summers day,  sounds perfect.