Rieslings to be Cheerful Part I

It was ‘Riesling Day’ a few weeks ago, and while I confess that passed me by (like most of these ‘special’ days), it did mean that I was sent quite a few Rieslings to sample. That include a bunch of wines from the Clare Valley in Australia, but also wines from the Eden Valley, Alsace and New Zealand, with a mix of styles from steely and bone-dry to Botrytis-affected sweet wines.

This round-up of 22 Rieslings tasted is in two parts: part I features the wines of the Clare Valley, and part II features the other Rieslings tasted.

Riesling is a distinctive grape variety, almost always relatively low in alcohol, zippy and unoaked, but with a broad range of styles from the exotically fruited to the most citrussy and linear. An aromatic component that can be found in some wines is variously described as anything from ‘waxy’ to ‘paraffin’ or ‘petrol’. It seems this character is down to a compound known as TDN. TDN may be more or less present in a Riesling according to many factors, including yields, warmth of the weather and water stress during the growing season, but it seems there is little doubt that where present, TDN increases and the aroma becomes more powerful as the wines mature in bottle.

The Clare Valley

Clare Valley mapClare lies north of Adelaide. Renowned for this variety, it is not an especially cool region, but it experiences a large diurnal variation: at the height of the growing season it can be 40°C during the day, falling to single digits overnight. Most vineyards are planted between 400 and 500 metres altitude, and while there are a variety of soil types, two sub-regions are particularly celebrated: Polish Hill with its broken slate and Watervale with limestone.

The Wines

(2024) Delicious fat limey aromas, quite luscious but with that green citrus edge that keeps things keen. There's a lovely hint of smoky minerality. The palate is dry, a bright acid core is savoury and mouthwatering. Price and stockist are for the previous vintage at time of review.
(2024) From the Watervale district of Clare, the Stanway family first planted this vineyard in 1974. There's an intriguing hint of crushed almond and honey that's soon swept up in aromas of spring blossom and lime. A little beeswax nuance is delicate and peripheral. In the mouth there is a juicy peach ripeness at the core of this pale, almost transparent wine, but plenty of decisive, lemon zest and cool apple acidity too that balances any hint of sweetness and leave a zippy, taut impression.
(2024) With a huge total acidity of 8.2g/l this is as sharp as a tack, aromas of icing sugar and lime also have a ripeness to offset the crystalline precision. The palate has a sheer, bone-dry precision between its lemon and lime, taut fruit and shimmering acid length. Invigorating stuff, and rather fabulous. Price and stockist quoted at time of review are for a previous vintage.
(2024) From a vineyard at 480 metres, one of the highest in the Clare Valley,there's petrol and beeswax in the aromatic mix here, as well as cool and pristine limey fruit. I really enjoyed the very dry, shimmering citrus and cool, crisp apple crunch of this, the finish showing a little salts and spice.
(2024) Made exclusively with free run juice, this comes from a very cool vintage and despite a touch of residual sugar (4.4g/l) it is a zingingly fresh, mouth-watering dry wine. Citrus and white flowers dominate the nose, zesty and floral. In the mouth that squeeze of lemon juice freshness really bursts onto the palate, and this appears to be bone dry, the acidity and linear quality of the fruit deliciously energising.
(2024) Maybe this wine just hit my particular sweet spot, but I loved it. Initially there are waxy, parrafin notes in abundance, a fine mineral sophistication, and abundant lime fruit. In the mouth it's ravishing stuff, textured and citrussy with a certain fat, but with such vivid, streaking mineral and lime juice core.

Go to part II: the other Rieslings.

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