Winemaker Notes
The great 2021 vintage expresses itself at Springvale as subtle lemon and lime citrus aromas, a touch of lavender and spring herbs. There’s an intensity on the palate, which is fresh, pristine and powerful, a taut structure which defines the wine and helps it build layers of citrus flavors. The finish is ultra-dry, long and precise. While delicious when young, it will benefit from more time.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A piercing wine that has such intense and focused lime fruit, as well as sweetly fragrant floral notes. Spellbinding intensity to the nose here. The palate sings with clarity and bright, vivid acidity drives pure lime-juice flavors long and fresh. Full of energy and a real powerhouse.
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.