Where does Riesling Come From?

Earlier, Riesling was sometimes claimed to have originated from wild vines of the Rhine region, without much support to back up that claim. More recently, DNA fingerprinting by Ferdinand Regner indicated that one parent of Riesling is Gouais Blanc, known to the Germans as Weißer Heunisch, a variety that, while rare today, was widely grown by the French and German peasantry of the Middle Ages. The other parent is a cross between a wild vine and Traminer. It is presumed that the Riesling was born somewhere in the valley of the Rhine, since both Heunisch and Traminer have a long documented history in Germany, but with parents from either side of the Adriatic the cross could have happened anywhere on the way.

It has also been suggested, but not proved, that the red-skinned version of Riesling is the forerunner of the common, "white" Riesling.[10] Most likely, the genetic differences between white and red Riesling are minuscule, as is the case for the difference between Pinot noir and Pinot gris.