Winemaker Notes
Hills & Valleys Riesling is made from premium Riesling fruit sourced from both growers and our Estate vineyards. This wine is made with immediate enjoyment in mind - although 4-6 years in the cellar won’t do it any harm at all.
Great with Indian food or anything with a hint of spice.
Professional Ratings
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: One of my favorite food matches with Clare Valley Riesling is food with just a bit of spice (heat) in it. The 2017 Pikes Hills & Valleys Riesling is picture-perfect for this matching. TASTING NOTES: This wine is charming and exhibits a pleasingly firm palate. Its aromas and flavors of ripe apples, flowers, and a hint of petrol make it an excellent choice with curry chicken over Basmati rice. (Tasted: October 11, 2018, San Francisco, CA)
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.