Category: Clare Valley

From Alsace to the Clare Valley is a long way but the Riesling connection keeps my glass half full. One of my favourite local wine shops has the clever workers stylish in T shirts telling me it’s the summer of Riesling. My attempts to be so chic in a free one have been answered only by suggestions I’d need to buy a few more bottles to get a complimentary shirt. This particular bottle from the cellar makes me wish I’d bought a lot more 2012 Lodge Hill than just one. Opened with a bit of asafoetida like sulphur reduction which blows away rapidly to let the intense and typical aroma and flavour of Clare lime to power on through. Lime in its many forms too, leaf, skin oil, juice and when it’s been cut and put flesh side down to caramelise in a pan. Loads of sweet fruit but no sugar, it does say dry on the front label, a tropical sort of lime richness that’s balanced beautifully by natural and mouthwatering acidity, all bedded on a twist of tonic water tang. Not the full orchestra of the Schaal Riesling but so true and clear in pitch. Ageing superbly, unlike some around here.

12.5% alcohol. Screw cap. $20 on release, stupidly cheap.

94 points.

Not exactly the most on trend packaging perhaps? About as fashionable as this blog. Thanks to Winefront for again reviewing something that probably wouldn’t be a random first choice from the shelves of summer essential Riesling. Density and softness of fruit flavour suggests care, money and time lavished on hand picking and gentle squeezing. Still fresh and full of citrus, that developing lime caramelised in a warm pan and a herby sweetness of coriander and its seed, fennel and a lick of vanilla. Pillows softly but full in the mouth and caries on fine acidity. The best sort of Clare Riesling, books and covers, eh?

12% alcohol. Screw cap. $35 rrp on release, $17 at auction, lucky.

94 points.

A new vintage with very good early words. Despite coming to the conclusion that Clare Rieslings only start to taste something like wine in the new year after vintage rather than yeasty fermented grape juice, a 95 point review from an eminence gris of Australian wine writing persuaded me to crack the cap. Oh well, what do I know, this is an inscrutable mess of yeasty smells, not much else, maybe something like Sauvignon Blanc. Nice even flow across the tongue though, fine mouthwatering acidity. Beyond that I’m not much wiser. The second day brings more. Big swell of elemental lime juice and herbs, still a lurking green Sauvignon B ending. Noticed the 11% alcohol but not a huge amount, if any, of residual sugar which does make me wonder if the fashion for picking everything a little less ripe has spread to Riesling in Australia? The weight of fruit and fine acidity are alone more than enough to put a couple away for warmer summer days. Hope the critics are right, crystal balls on the line as it were. A warm dreamy summer evening and a cold glass of mountain stream fresh Riesling are one of life’s affordable joys.

11% alcohol. Screw cap. $14.50 in a six at Dan’s.

Pick a number between 90 and 94 and hope sort of score.

Riesling loving neighbours to dinner, fine taste in wine and generous too. The veto seems to refer to the Barry patriarch trying to keep some control when his two clever sons took over the business. Based on recent deliciousness, he should leave them to it. Rich and dry with an appealing savouriness. Mandarin, limes and stones of good weight for the lively acidity which dances on light feet. I get the feeling this is going to be extra good in time. It’s starting to loosen up but the power’s there for that rich lime marmalade on toast built on ancient chalk soil to emerge in many years to come. Wish I was as confident in my own outcome.

12.5% alcohol. Screw cap. Thanks for sharing your last bottle, D and Y.

92+ points.

An admission, after a thirty year love affair with Riesling from the Clare and Eden Valleys this is my first bottle of Florita from a Watervale vineyard planted in 1946. Despite several years in a bottle, the first sniff was one of surly reduction in the form of that odd gum derived Indian spice, asafoetida. As it clears with air the curious direct memory link between nose and brain elicited a familiar warm pleasure without being able to put a name to recognised parallel smells. As limited intellect coped with the sensory input, things like lime, wax, old stones came to mind. Leaving half the bottle for a second day proved a good move. Any shyness gone, a glorious example of all the best Clare flavours, chiseled and distilled on the freshest laser beam of pristine fruit, all controlled by the most mouth watering of perfect ripe acidity. No raw power, just precision. What have I been missing all these years?

12.3% alcohol. Screw cap. $50 or so.

Started 94 on day one, 96 day two!

A little reduction to start, clears quickly but there’s still some just made and bottled yeasty savour. Below there be masses of lime cordial, fresh lime and kaffir lime zest, lots of lime really. Some green apple juice and steely flint. A power of fruit floats on ripe, succulent and mouthwatering acidity. Generous Watervale and looking forward to one in the heat of February next year when it settles and thence for years more. Dry grown, organic principles, hand picked. Cellar, bargain, winner.

12.5% alcohol. Screw cap. 589 gms glass. $19 Dan’s members’ special.

93+ points.