Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
The Watervale sub-region’s generous ‘soft rock’ red loam over limestone translates into a more expressive, fruit-driven style. While Polish Hill builds on the finish, Springvale 2015 has classic Watervale intensity and attack, with pure lime and lifted kaffir lime. Now that the vines’ roots have hit a vein of slate, Springvale is firmer, more mineral than most, with chalky dry extract going through. Very incisive, long and lip-smacking.
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Wine & Spirits
Grown at an elevation of 1,500 feet in Watervale, the vines at Springvale benefit from the water-holding capacity of limestone under the red loam soils. They produce a generous riesling, round and juicy, smoky with brisk mineral leesiness. The chalky feel of the acidity closes off the flavors, but after each sip, the fruit seems to pull through that chalk wall, lengthening the finish with lemon zest, lemongrass and tarragon. Decant this if you open it now; best to cellar for eight years or more, to allow the wine to open.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2015 Springvale Riesling is youthfully reticent with lovely floral notes of peach blossoms and jasmine over a core of green apples, crushed stones and lemon juice. Light-bodied, dry, crisp and pristine on the palate, it offers vibrant citrus flavors and a long finish.
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.