Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine & Spirits
2009 Clare Valley Mort's Reserve Watervale Riesling Mort Mitchell planted this site 40 years ago, the wine now made by his son, Kevin. The age of the vines shows in the flavor concentration, a mineral bath of lime zest, lemon curd and something deeper in hue, like the pink cast of a peach. The earthy tension of the wine is driven by acidity, integrated into the flavor so it tastes like fruit, finishing dry and savory. Built to age ten years or more.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2009 Mort's Reserve Riesling offers a similar aromatic and flavor profile (it is also barely off-dry) but is richer and broader on the palate. This lengthy effort also has the acid structure to blossom for several more years and offers a drinking window from 2013 to 2024.
Rating: 92+ -
Wine Spectator
Sleek, vibrant and tingling with lime, green apple, star fruit and wet-stone aromas and flavors. A textbook Riesling that finishes dry and steely. Best from 2012 through 2020. 50 cases imported.
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.