Winemaker Notes
Gentle lime and lemongrass aromatics, almost shy at present, precede a palate that, even at this early stage, shows evidence of its quality and impeccable balance. It has pristine lemon, lime flavors that are powerful, intense and bright. This vintage, there’s more concentration and generosity of flavor: more weight without any loss of finesse. Destined to be acknowledged as a great vintage.
Professional Ratings
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Australian Wine Companion
Certified organic and biodynamic. A high-tension, fragrant Springvale release. Bright, floral perfume of lime blossom, ozone, blackcurrant and green apple. A strong spectrum of citrus flavours are the currency here: lemon, lime and a squirt of pulpy grapefruit zing with a faintly yeasty, almond-like character to finish. Quiet complexity and vitality are writ large here. Excellent.
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James Suckling
What a complex and enticing nose this dry riesling has, with notes of lime, melon and a slew of Mediterranean herbs. Serious concentration is married to blade-runner lime, mint and wet-stone freshness at the very 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.