RIESLING READY
This vibrant white variety comes in many different guises. We round up a range of top styles worth a closer look.
1 2021 HENSCHKE JULIUS RIESLING
Winemaker: Stephen Henschke
The palate shows excellent flavour intensity with concentrated lime juice, grapefruit and white peach, balanced by focused and defined acidity, and a river pebble mineral mouthfeel driving the powerful and long finish.
What makes this riesling so special?
This is the 28th release of our Julius
Eden Valley Riesling, and 2021 was an exceptional Eden Valley riesling vintage. This wine has trademark florals and lime zest in its youth, but it is born to age. In the stillness of cool nights, the berries slowly mature, building pure acidity with textural minerality and length.
What’s the best way to enjoy this wine?
As a young wine, this shows citrus blossom, white peach and zesty lime characters – perfect with freshly shucked Coffin Bay oysters. With age, it transforms into rich, toasty magnificence; crayfish and marron dishes make a lovely accompaniment.
$47, henschke.com.au @henschke
2 2020 CAPEL VALE WHISPERING HILL
MOUNT BARKER RIESLING
Winemaker: Daniel Hetherington
An enticing nose of orange blossom and kaffir lime leads into subtle stone fruit, rock salt acidity and a talcy finish.
How do you best describe this riesling?
The 2020 vintage perfectly encapsulates everything we love about Mount Barker riesling. It has the signature floral perfumes of Whispering Hill, but the citrus flavours are particularly ripe and the wine has a delicious salty mineral character that we love.
What’s the best way to enjoy this wine?
Riesling is made for long Australian sunny afternoons. There really isn’t a better way to enjoy riesling than with freshly shucked oysters with a dash of sea salt on a warm patio close to the beach.
$32, capelvale.com
3 2021 PLAN B! DR RIESLING
Winemaker: Vanessa Carson
Beautifully lifted aromatics of pink musk, jasmine florals and bath salts. The palate is powerful and textural, with a mineral acid backbone on which the lime blossom and star fruit flavours hang.
How did the growing season impact this wine?
From a single block of 20-year-old riesling vines in Frankland River, the 2021 vintage was a crowning amalgam of welcome rain, perfectly warm summer days and cool crisp nights, all conspiring to retain acid, allowing flavours to develop while still preserving power and finesse.
What’s the best way to enjoy it?
Drink this in summer for its freshness and purity, and drink it in winter to transport you back to summer! It’s delicious as an aperitif, with cured meats and all seafood. Super versatile, it drinks well in its youth, and is at its peak at 10 to 15 years of age.
$30, planbwines.com @plan_b_wines
4 2021 RIESLING FREAK NO .4 EDEN VALLEY RIESLING
Winemakers: John & Belinda Hughes
The bouquet leaps forth with aromas of white florals, sweet spice, lime and quince. The palate is elegant, yet assuredly structured with slate-like minerality running beneath the more delicate flavours of citrus and rosewater.
What do you believe sets this wine apart?
The 2021 vintage was a hallmark harvest for Eden Valley riesling, producing wines of exceptional natural acidity and richly complex flavours. Harvested from vineyards across the higher-elevation southern ranges of Eden Valley, this is a pure expression of variety and region.
What’s the best way to enjoy this wine?
The richly perfumed bouquet and mineraldriven palate make this wine the perfect complement to fresh seafood and a variety of Asian cuisines. While drinking beautifully in its youth, this wine will also age gracefully and reward patience, with the potential for 20-plus years in the cellar.
$27, rieslingfreak.com @rieslingfreakofficial
5 2020 POOLE Y RIESLING
Winemakers: Anna Pooley & Justin Bubb
Alluring notes of jasmine and orange blossom on the nose. The palate is flamboyant with flavours of kaffir lime zest, red apples, and ripened melon. An insatiable drive and texture with harmonious acid and marathon length.
What makes this riesling so special?
The wine is a blend of our two unique cool-climate sites and shows a seamless balance between acid, texture, and residual sugar. This Riesling truly personifies the Coal River Valley and is a testament to the meticulous care and dedication shown to our vineyards.
What’s the best way to enjoy this wine?
It has impeccable balance as a young wine and can be enjoyed as an aperitif or with seafood and a beurre blanc sauce. However, patience will be rewarded if you can leave it, with it growing in stature, adding layers of complexity. The optimum drinking window is now until 2033.
$39, pooleywines.com.au @pooleywines
6 2021 ROBERT STEIN DRY RIESLING
Winemakers: Jacob Stein & Lisa Bray
A classic dry riesling, with a mouthful of citrus characters and a crisp and racy finish with beautiful natural acidity. This wine has the ability to age gracefully over the next 10 years.
How do you approach this riesling?
After a tough 2020 vintage, it was great to again make our full stable of rieslings this year. This dry style is made from various special Mudgee sites, all more than 45 years of age and above 500m in altitude. This wine is putting Mudgee and Robert Stein on the map with its swag of trophies and medals.
What’s the best way to enjoy this wine?
Riesling is perfectly suited to the Australian climate and cuisine. When young and zippy, our dry Riesling is perfect with oysters and prawns with a good squeeze of lemon. It is also superb after eight years to celebrate a special occasion, with pan-seared scallops or fish ceviche.
$40, robertstein.com.au @robertsteinwinery
7 2019 HIGHLAND HERITAGE MT CANOBOLAS DRY RIESLING
Winemaker: Luke Steel
The bouquet is elegant and intense with smoky citrus lime and floral varietal characters. The palate shows youthful, intense, floral riesling fruit characters filling the length of the palate, balanced with a long, crisp, clean acid finish.
Where does this riesling come from?
Low yielding, handpicked and grown at 890 metres above sea level in the cool climate of Orange NSW, these grapes grow in shallow top soil over an iron stone shelf with excellent drainage.
What’s the best way to enjoy this wine?
While extremely enjoyable now, the history of this wine shows it will gain further complexity and depth of flavour over the next four to 10 years. The wine is crisp and sophisticated, and may be served chilled (4 to 6˚C), on its own, or with fine cuisine, such as white meat, fish, yabbies or other seafood.
$28, highlandheritage.com.au
8 2020 MOORILLA ESTATE PR AXIS SPARKLING RIESLING
Winemaker: Conor van der Reest
A startling bouquet bursts with white jasmine and orange blossoms, overlaid with crisp green apples and fresh-picked grapes. Balanced acidity carries throughout to a lingering finish.
What can you tell us about your sparkling style?
This is a bolder, richer sparkling wine than our past few vintages – it really highlights the aromatic qualities of our riesling fruit while staying balanced. It’s also a great showcase for the creamy, brioche-y character that’s a real hallmark of Moorilla sparkling.
What’s the best way to enjoy this wine?
It’s a cliche, but any time – it’s a wine crafted for drinking now, nice and chilled (but not too cold), and again tomorrow.
$29, shop.moorilla.com.au @moorillawinery
9 2021 B LE AS DALE ADELAIDE HILLS RIESLING
Winemaker: Paul Hotker
Crisp and refreshing, with delicate floral and citrus aromas, honeysuckle and lime leaf. A generous palate with zesty lemon, lime and crunchy pink lady apple flavours, with a clean, persistent finish.
What do you love about this expression?
The Adelaide Hills fruit has great perfume and acidity, which allows some textural elements from ferment solids without leading to a midriff bulge. It has purity with complexity, but it is also clean, crisp and delicious.
What’s the best way to enjoy this wine?
Riesling’s acidity makes it great with rich foods, I lean towards pork; roast with spiced crackling or chops with sage and apple, pork and cabbage rolls, it will disappear quickly when friends come for lunch. This wine is delicious now but will reward cellaring for 10 years or so if you have the patience.
$30, bleasdale.com.au @bleasdalevineyards
10 2015 PETER LEHMAN N WINES THE MASTERS COLLECTION WIGAN RIESLING
Winemaker: Tim Dolan
The colour is delicate with a green tinge and beautiful aroma of lime cordial combined with some toasty characters. The palate shows great fruit purity with a crisp, dry finish. This is one of the classic Wigan Rieslings.
What sets this riesling apart?
Quite simply, it’s a combination of having access to a unique site that is passionately tended to, perfect growing conditions throughout the 2015 vintage, and careful, considered winemaking from the moment the grapes arrive at the winery.
What’s the best way to enjoy this wine?
Spring time is typically a celebration of Eden Valley Riesling for many Barossans. I can think of no better way to spend a warm, lazy Sunday afternoon combining the Wigan Riesling with freshly shucked oysters from South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula.
$35, peterlehmannwines.com @peterlehmannwines
11 2021 PIKE S TRADITIONAL E CLARE VALLEY RIESLING
Winemaker: Steve Baraglia
Pale straw in colour. Vibrant aromas of perfume, florals and fresh limes dominate and carry through to the palate, where talcy/mineral characters join in to create a zesty, crisp, moreish finish.
Where does this wine's fruit come?
Traditionale is a subregional blend of Polish Hill River, Mintaro, Leasingham, Watervale and Sevenhill. Only free-run juice is used from higher-altitude sites, highlighting the purity of riesling without winemaking influence being evident. With a long, cool vintage, 2021 is among the top few vintages in the past decade.
What’s the best way to enjoy this wine?
It’s wonderful to drink fresh and bright while young on a summer day, but with careful cellaring, it will develop into a complex aged wine. My preference is to drink it fresh and young, and around four to six years of age, but it will last 20-plus years with patience.
$26, pikeswines.com.au @pikeswines
12 2014 HOWARD PARK MUSEUM RELEASE RIESLING
Director of winemaking: Janice McDonald
The aromatics gradually reveal lemon sherbet, pear skin, riverbank stones and fresh Brazil nuts. It has integrated its youthful acidity and gained textural richness, maintaining focus, purity, mineral drive and length.
What makes this riesling so special?
We delved into the archives and brought back the original label, created by the late Denise Bowen, a local artist and mother of Howard Park’s chief winemaker Nic Bowen. The label, like the wine in the bottle, is a love song to the region with a core of lime, citrus and pleasing petrol notes.
What’s the best way to enjoy this wine?
This is a wine of multitudes that pairs beautifully with a plate of freshly shucked oysters, and is just as well suited to an aromatic and lightly spiced South East Asian curry. Best enjoyed chilled, it is perfect no matter the season.
$41, howardparkwines.com.au @howardparkwines