Winemaker Notes
Clear, palest straw color in the glass. The wine opens with citrus rind, lemon blossom and a lick of wet slate on the nose. This wine has a sense of purpose in its line. Clean mineral, white floral and nice texture through the mid and back with the classic saline edge to finish. Screaming summer drinking, the finish is clean and refreshingly long.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2019 Assyrtiko shows a bit more perfume than previous vintages, including some floral notes alongside lime and green plums. It's medium-bodied, with a slightly grainy, rich texture and a long, crisp finish.
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Wine Spectator
Lemon curd, saline, fresh ginger and honeysuckle notes are intense and vibrant, with a wonderfully succulent texture, crisp acidity and terrific focus on the long, expressive finish.
A crisp white variety full of zippy acidity, Assyrtiko comes from the volcanic Greek island of Santorini but is grown increasingly wide throughout the country today. Assyrtiko’s popularity isn’t hard to explain: it retains its acid and mineral profile in a hot climate, stands alone or blends well with other grapes and can also withstand some age. Somm Secret—On the fairly barren, windswept Mediterranean island of Santorini, Assyrtiko vines must be cultivated in low baskets, pinned to the ground. The shape serves to preserve moisture and protect the growing grapes in its interior.
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.