Pewsey Vale, Eden Valley, Riesling

Descrizione

We love really good wines.

This is a seriously, really good wine and we really love it. In fact, we’ve known this wine for years in two of its guises (there’s a special selection version too…) and we’re always fascinated by its fresh clarity, intensity and sheer charm.

It’s delicious and tastes of fresh-picked apples, lime, lemons, and grapefruit with notes of herbs, dried flowers and rosemary. Complex and long, the wine has a surprising weight in the mouth but finishes in a bone-dry, refreshing and mouth-watering fashion on account if the wonderful balancing acidity.

Grown in a single vineyard that only grows Riesling, this wine has a very long pedigree dating back to 1847. The Eden Valley is a sub-zone of the Barossa Valley and the owners of the vineyard – the Hill-Smith family – are steeped in the history of the region as well. They more than know what they’re up to in the area and make stellar wines in each of its micro and macro vineyard areas. This vineyard, however, is one of the hardest that they farm on account of the 500 metre above sea level altitude and the poor soil that has numerous rocky outcrops. It was replanted by the Hill-Smith family in the 1960s in terraced rows that have largely remained in tact to this day, creating a breathtakingly beautiful vineyard picture landscape in the process. Eden Valley itself is a cool climate region – by Australian standards its freezing – with average yearly temperatures at about the 22 degree mark. It means that, even with glorious sunshine, there is retention of acidity that marks out Riesling so well and suits the style of this wine hand in glove. Acid levels are 6.6 grams per litre, while residual sugar levels are at an eye-watering lip-puckering 1.0g per litre – almost unheard-of in the world of white wines.

A cracking wine. It’ll age, too, if you have the patience – the winery releases old vintages as library editions from time to time in order to show their prowess in this regard. But the fresh, zingy sherbet-like fizzle… that’s what gets us going most about it. A genuinely bright and brilliant alternative to European styles (yes, even the Germans): not better, just different.