Torzi Matthews Schist Rock Riesling 2008
-
Wine
Spectator
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
-
Wine Spectator
Really vibrant, with pear, peach, melon and lime flavors from the first sip through the long, expressive finish, hinting at slate as this lingers. Impeccable balance lets the flavors sing. Drink now through 2015.
I am fifth generation Calabrian - Abruzzese stock and grew up on the Adelaide Plains working for the family's market gardens as for Tracy she was born and raised in Sydney’s Newcastle with a long career in hospitality.
In 1996 Tracy and I stumbled across a small, frost-pocketed hollow in the beautiful Mt McKenzie, Eden Valley and fell in love with the area for its remoteness and its diverse thin soils.
The rationale was quite simple: this land would produce low yields of Shiraz fruit which in turn would translate into a full, flavoursome Italian style wine - the style of wine needed to match our Mediterranean Italian food.
Tracy and I had plenty of detractors and lots of unsolicited advice, some good, some ...well some people don't have vision. The vines went in, the frosts came, the yields were low and Frost Dodger was created.
Frost Dodger wines are crafted via non-interventional Italian / European techniques where our heritage appassimento method is used for our Shiraz fruit a method that employs careful hand harvested whole bunches which are then put onto racks which are laid out for drying in the natural mother air on the estate and in turn fermented naturally by the indigenous yeasts from the vineyard.
Riesling possesses a remarkable ability to reflect the character of wherever it is grown while still maintaining its identity. A regal variety of incredible purity and precision, this versatile grape can be just as enjoyable dry or sweet, young or old, still or sparkling and can age longer than nearly any other white variety. Somm Secret—Given how difficult it is to discern the level of sweetness in a Riesling from the label, here are some clues to find the dry ones. First, look for the world “trocken.” (“Halbtrocken” or “feinherb” mean off-dry.) Also a higher abv usually indicates a drier Riesling.
Historically and presently the most important wine-producing region of Australia, the Barossa Valley is set in the Barossa zone of South Australia, where more than half of the country’s wine is made. Because the climate is very hot and dry, vineyard managers work diligently to ensure grapes reach the perfect levels of phenolic ripeness.
The intense heat is ideal for plush, bold reds, particularly Shiraz on its own or Rhône Blends. Often Shiraz and Cabernet partner up for plump and powerful reds.
While much less prevalent, light-skinned varieties such as Riesling, Viognier or Semillon produce vibrant Barossa Valley whites.
Most of Australia’s largest wine producers are based here and Shiraz plantings date back as far as the 1850s or before. Many of them are dry farmed and bush trained, still offering less than one ton per acre of inky, intense, purple juice.