Winemaker Notes
A warm & productive summer put plenty of flesh on this wine. The fruit is issued from Rippon’s mature vines, whose root hairs have invaded the schist rock below. Lurking towards the end of the first mouthful is substantial phenolic power and it soon starts to take charge of the wine and give it its sense of place.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A warmer season has delivered much in the way of texture and flavor here. The concentration is really striking. Very fragrant with mouthwatering aromas of fresh and ripe lemons, light pastry-like, savory nuances and impressive, stony, flinty notes. The palate has a smooth, sleek and succulent feel. The weight and freshness here is staggering. Refined, long and piercing, the lemon and grapefruit flavors carry so fresh. From biodynamically grown grapes. Drink or hold.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Apple, citrus and crushed-stone notes all mingle easily on the nose of the 2018 Mature Vine Riesling. It's a steely, nearly dry and powerful wine, with ample weight on the palate and tremendous length, the crisp finish echoing with hints of apple, lime, vegetable oil and dried spices and ending on texturally edgy granules of decomposing granite.
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Wine Enthusiast
This is a fleshy, slightly wild Riesling, which, in typical Rippon style, shimmers with a sense of place and personality. Honeyed in both color and aroma, it opens with heady notes of fresh lilac, marzipan, ginger, lemon verbena and, of course, honeycomb. The mouth prickles with acidity amid layers of texture and phenolics. Wine Dogs Imports LLC.
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.
Home to the globe’s most southerly vineyards, which are cultivated below the 45th parallel, Central Otago is a true one-of-a-kind wine growing region, but not only because of its extreme location.
Central Otago is more dependent on one single variety than any other region in New Zealand—and it isn’t Sauvignon blanc. They don’t even make Sauvignon blanc there.
Pinot Noir claims nearly 75% of the region’s vineyards with Pinot Gris coming in a far second place and Riesling behind it. This is also New Zealand’s only wine region with a continental climate, giving it more diurnal and seasonal temperature shifts than any other.
The subregion of Bannockburn has enjoyed the most success historically but the area’s exceptional growth has moved to the promising regions of Cromwell/Bendigo and Alexandra districts. Central Otago is known for its fruity and full-bodied Pinot noir. With the freedom to experiment here, growers and winemakers are easily exhibiting the area’s great potential.