True, Riesling is not edging Chardonnay off retail shelves in droves, but neither is it being ignored anymore, especially dry Riesling. The best New World dry Rieslings -- those from Australia's Eden and Clare valleys, the Marlborough region of New Zealand, Washington state, Oregon, New York's Finger Lakes and special pockets in California -- offer laser-sharp aromas, zingy acidity, purity of fruit and exciting varietal expression.

Their Old World counterparts -- principally finer examples from Germany, Austria and Alsace -- tend to be weightier on the palate with deeper flavors and more distinct expressions of vineyard source.

Sommeliers and chefs, especially in the Bay Area and other metropolitan culinary meccas, are coming to adore Riesling for its affinity with a broad range of popular menu items and its ability to enhance the dining experience. And for some savvy wine lovers, this versatile wine has become a chic beverage to serve at home and a choice that elicits the sommelier's knowing smile acknowledging the diner's being ahead of the curve when it's ordered at the table. For those who collect and cellar wines, fine dry Rieslings are capable of gaining complexity, greater depth and mature expressions of aroma and flavor over time -- up to 20 years or more.

Many Americans think of Riesling exclusively as a sweet wine, which probably explains the inherent bias against the varietal in this country. Sophisticated wine drinkers, it is said, tend to prefer dry wines, viewing sweet wines either as the drink of choice of the uninitiated or reserved for the dessert course.

It's a false perception. One of the most versatile of wine grapes, Riesling can be made into virtually every style of wine imaginable, except red. There's even Riesling sparkling wine, called Sekt.

It all depends on the percentage of residual sugar -- or lack of it -- in the bottled wine, ranging from bone dry with no residual sugar to the sweetest of golden nectars containing 30 percent residual sugar and more.

Riesling is grown in several countries beyond its homeland, Germany, which offers the varietal in all its styles. While most Riesling production worldwide falls into the categories of sweet or semisweet, a significant amount is, either by preference or tradition, vinified dry. That's the case in Austria, where Riesling is the most prestigious white grape variety (although Gruner Veltliner is close behind) and the Alsace region of France (where it shares prominence with Gewurztraminer and Pinot Gris).

In the New World's Southern Hemisphere, the Australians and New Zealanders make it mostly in a crisp, dry style -- and quite well, too. The Chileans produce some as well, particularly a charming dry Riesling called Dona Isadora from Cousino-Macul, which retails in this country for about $10.

German wine law defines a dry (trocken) wine as one containing no more than 9 grams of residual (or unfermented) sugar per liter, which in American terms comes out to about 0.9 percent by volume. The law is not so precise in this country, but a wine from an American producer labeled "Dry Riesling" can reasonably be expected to correspond to the German trocken requirements.

It's fair to say that these wines rarely exceed 1 percent residual sugar, and most are in the range of 0.6 to 0.9 percent. The average palate begins to detect sweetness in wine at about 1.3 percent residual sugar.

If the label doesn't declare the Riesling to be dry, check the alcohol level, which must be specified on the front or back label. If it's more than 10 percent, the Riesling is most likely dry or at least semidry; generally, the higher the alcohol, the drier the Riesling.