If you are simply searching for one of the best food Riesling's around - Stop now and click to purchase. This Riesling is pale straw in colour with a subtle lime hue. On the nose, aromas of lime, lychee and spice play with notes of rose petal. The palate is wonderfully round and complex with flinty fresh acidity and wonderful length of flavour.
The vintage of 2013 was warmer than average and we picked our Riesling about one month earlier than we usually would. However, even in these warm conditions the clear dry nights allowed the fruit to cool down and retain its natural levels of acidity. It’s worth noting that no acid additions were made in this wine. The fruit itself had two distinct personalities. The parcel selected from Lake View came from low yielding, scrappy looking 40 year old vines that displayed intense citrus characters. Further up the road, the fruit from Baarrooka came from a rarely planted clone (SA170) that has the most amazing muscat and rose petal aromas - qualities we love in this wine! It was the distinctive qualities of these fruit parcels that guided our winemaking decisions and this is where it gets interesting. We decided to ferment the Lake View parcel on yeast lees in a 5,400 litre oak cask and the Baarrooka parcel in stainless steel. While common practice in the Alsace region of France, it is unusual to ferment Riesling on its lees in oak in Australia. However, we do because it helps build complexity and by carefully monitoring the time on lees (just two and half months) we built subtle texture and roundness in this wine without the development of any autolytic characters. The fruit from Baarrooka was fermented in stainless steel to retain the freshness of its intense aromatic characters, which complement the more complex and round ones of Lake View perfectly. A small component of Pinot Gris (3%) that was wild fermented in old French oak barrels was blended to add another layer of complexity and depth to the palate of this wine. This is one of the most exciting Rieslings we’ve made to date. Perfumed, textural and complex it has the qualities to match wild game and the personality to intrigue, delight or divide the most ardent acid hounds.
Awards and Accolades
95 Points - James Halliday, Australian Wine Companion "Fermentation in a used 5400l French oak vat, the addition of 2% muscat of alexandria, and the retention of 5gl of residual sugar have all come together seamlessly in a wine with length and real personality; the flavours ripple through citrus, apple and minerally acidity."
91 Points - Campbell Mattinson, The Wine Front "Full-bodied in a varietal context with mandarin, lime and lemon sherbet flavours shooting through the palate. Bath salt notes too. Has the merest whisper of sweetness but boasts a lengthy, tangy finish."
Past Vintages
2013: 94 Points - James Halliday, Australian Wine Companion "Forty per cent of the wine was fermented in stainless steel, and 60% in large-format French oak. A further touch was the inclusion of 3% pinot gris wild fermented in used French. Altogether left field, but has worked. Both the bouquet and palate already have a generous display of ripe citrus and apple fruit aromas and flavours, almost into tropical nuances; the structure and texture are also well above-average."
From the Winery
The fruit for this wine was harvested on 19 March 2014 in the cool of night to ensure fruit temperature is low to preserve primary fruit flavours.The grapes were only de-stemmed before pressing to minimise phenolic extraction to help create a more delicate wine. In Riesling, we want to minimise the extraction of these phenolic compounds to ensure only the delicate characteristics of the grape juice is expressed in the wine.
This wine was fermented at around 11˚C using a yeast strain called QA23. We selected this yeast because it ferments well at low temperatures and promotes the development of varietal aromas and flavours. All of this wine (100%) was fermented in large format French oak (5400 litre) and kept on fermentation lees for ten weeks to add complexity and texture to the palate.
