Winemaker Notes
Fragrant nose filled with lime zest and lime florals, whilst showing atouch of restraint. The palate is juicy with packs of limes, lemon and schist minerals. The wine is coiled tight with piercing acidity but there is a concentration of fruit and texture that lends amazing balance and depth. Ultra-dry finish.
Professional Ratings
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Wine & Spirits
Springvale is the successor to Jeffrey Grosset's Watervale Riesling, renamed with the 2008 vintage when Grosset started to pull the fruit from his own vineyard. That vineyard sits at 1,500 feet, the same elevation as Polish Hill and higher than the original Watervale site nearby. The vines, planted in red loam and shale over limestone, produce more generously than those growing at Polish Hill; in 2014, the Springvale fruit is concentrated, almost electric in its spark of energy. Everythig about it is pure and cool, from the flowers-in-a-forest scent to the core strength of its mineral-edged fruit. This is a Riesling with abs. Grosset Rieslings are usually at their best after ten years in a cool, dark cellar.
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Wine Spectator
Lithe, vibrant and light-footed, but explosive, with flavors of pear, honeysuckle, apple and cinnamon, glowing brightly on the long and expressive finish. Drink now through 2024.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Still quite closed, the Springvale Riesling shows faint citrusy aromas of lemons and yuzu with a dusting of chalk and white pepper. Light-bodied and dry, it is approachable on the palate showing a similar citrus character as the nose and finishes long.
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.