Wine of the week

2002 Trefethen Dry Riesling, Napa Valley ($15). Riesling is not one of California's great success stories, but Trefethen's dry riesling has consistently been one of the few to reach the standards of top Old World estates. Neither German nor Alsace in style, it comes closest to the classic dry rieslings of Austria. This is a gripping wine with tremendous freshness but also the backbone to develop in the bottle over several years. There are nuances of minerals, pears and sweet peas, and the wine has great penetration and class. It showed wonderfully with a chicken curry and could be paired with most seafood.