Winemaker Notes
Bright and potent with intense lime juice aromatics that commands attention, this wine has a wonderful lime, lemongrass core; intensity and power yet with balance in the mid-palate. There’s a purity which thrills: it’s tight and fine before a long limey finish and a whisper of minerality. So attractive and persistent in its youth, it has the depth, power and balance to enjoy now or in 20 years.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Spectacular nose with a cornucopia of delicate citrus, stone-fruit and wildflower aromas. Then, a no less stunning combination of fruit and radically slate, flint and aniseed character. Very long finish with so much energy and great minerality. Excellent aging potential! From biodynamically grown grapes. Drink or hold. Screw cap.
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Australian Wine Companion
Certified organic and biodynamic. As always, an intense and concentrated expression of Clare Valley riesling. Powerful scents of mixed citrus peel, lime essence, lemongrass and ozone with faint, exotic spice and blackberry characters in the mix. The palate delivers juiciness, brightness of flavour and a little powdery grip to finish. A little more diffuse than legendary releases of this wine, the 2022 vintage feels a bit more accessible in youth. A couple of years' grace before drinking would yield additional enjoyment.
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.
The Clare Valley is actually a series of narrow north to south valleys, each with a different soil type and slightly different weather patterns along their stretch. In the southern heartland between Watervale and Auburn, there is mainly a crumbled, red clay loam soil called terra rossa and cool breezes come in from Gulf St. Vincent. A few miles north, in Polish Hill, is soft, red loam over clay; westerlies blowing in from the Spencer Gulf influece this area's climate.
The differences in soil, elevation, degree of slope and weather enable the region to produce some of Australia’s finest, aromatic, spicy and lime-pithy Rieslings, as well as excellent Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon and Malbec with ripe plummy fruit, good acid and big structure.
Clare Valley is an isolated farming country with a continental climate known for its warm and sunny days, followed by cool nights—perfect for wine grapes’ development of sugar and phenolic ripeness in conjunction with notable acidity levels.