| Fast Facts: Variety: Riesling Region: Clare Valley Country: Australia Winemaker: John Wilson Closure: Cork Alcohol: 12.5% Source: Gift from friend Winery Website: Wilson Vineyard |
Tasting Note: Straw yellow in colour with specks of green throughout. Honey, toast and fresh lemon zest on the nose. An explosion of lime and honeyed mouth-filling intensity with a focused line of acidity holding everything together through the outstanding length of the palate. An excellent wine close to its peak.
When to Drink: 2006 – 2009
Score: A superb aged Clare Valley Riesling that is one of the very best I have tried this year. 93/100
I’m in australia for a year and love riesling. i’ve been trying many australian rieslings lately, and like the dry style well enough, but, i’m wondering if you could post an entry sometime in the future giving your own judgement/opinion on the issue of what, so it seems to me, is the rapidity with which australian rieslings acquire diesel notes (something that takes decades to appear in german wines). i have a robust palate, so don’t mind that extra ‘note’ in the glass (i’m also tolerant of other supposedly bad things in wine, like brett and ‘stemminess’), but, it’s shocking for me to open, say, a 2002 riesling (what i would call young) and to find the diesel note completely dominant. what’s going on there? surely it is faulty winemaking? someone told me that i should not touch australian rieslings for another 5 yrs after the first year, since the diesel notes calm down again. i haven’t tried anything older than 2000 yet, so, is this true? or are australian winemakers still grappling with (or experimenting with) their winemaking/terroir, so that we have to wait another 30 yrs until they finally know what they’re doing? that would be fair enough if true. should i just switch to sweeter, NZ rieslings, which some knowing friends from the states tell me is superior?