Eden Valley

Pewsey Vale The Contours Riesling 2010

/ Alex Prichard Leave a comment

Pewsey Vale The Contours Riesling 2010

The Facts
Eden Valley Riesling from Pewsey Vale
Sample
RRP $34
Closure: screwcap
Alcohol: 12.5%
Release date: 1 Sept 2015

The waffle

Right – after a brief flutter with regular posting, I lapsed back in to old, poor habits.

So I’ve decided the only thing I can do is write a blog post as I write a tasting note. This might mean greater brevity but maybe less waffle is no bad thing. In fact, I suspect fewer words and more posts will be a good thing.

This wine has been in the wine fridge for a while – you’ll note I received it as a pre-release sample – but it is released with five years bottle ageing. As someone who loves Riesling with age (I just added a 2001 wine to my ‘to drink’ list) I approach this wine with those biases well and truly intact.

The wine

In the glass the wine is starting to show a little gold but it still looks young and fresh.

The nose is reasonably pronounced and shows plenty of the rich kero character for which aged Riesling is renowned. There’s toast, honey and lime too.

The palate is a little more austere – acidity is vibrant and persistent and it shows lots of lime topped off with lemon curd with a medium-light mouthfeel. There’s a touch of honey about it – something I can’t quite put my finger on but along the lines of honey on slightly burnt toast. The palate is really dominated by the citrus and the length is excellent. The acidity really pulls on the flavours of the wine and draws them out so it does evolve in your mouth. The finish also has a really interesting textural element – somewhere between (the over-used) minerality and lemon pith.

Of course, there is no need to drink this wine in a hurry. Store it correctly for another 5 or 10 years and if you love aged Riesling you’ll most likely be rewarded. It’s a sad fact that if you wait 5 years you may well be able to pick this wine up for a song at auction.

Pewsey Vale Prima Riesling 2015

/ Alex Prichard Leave a comment

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I am not a woman who turns her nose up at some residual sugar (RS, if you want wine-geek talk) in a wine.

This doesn’t mean I get excited by a run of the mill Moscato, or an overly sweet and confected rosé or indeed any wine which has been crafted with the 18-24 ladies in mind.

But RS can be such a clever and beautiful thing in wine and I, for one, am so happy that the Riesling pendulum is regaining some equilibrium. Yes, those austere, limey Clare Valley Rieslings are lovely in their vaguely terrifying way (I say that affectionately) but leave a touch of sugar in the wine and it can transform what is in your glass.

It’s not surprising I am a fan of German Rieslings and many of the Australian Rieslings which are embracing this (the RieslingFreak No 8 is a standout on this front). The Pewsey Vale Prima has been at the vanguard of what is hopefully a trend.

This was the very first wine I used in a WSET course when I needed an off dry Riesling. Before ‘off dry Rieslings’ attempted their moment in the sun. It is consistent – consistently good. I’m a fan.

Riesling ages beautifully, dry or not. But the off dry Rieslings have the added bonus of being very light on the alcohol. Yeast converts sugar to alcohol. The grape juice has all that sugar in it. If you ferment it all out – you have a dry wine with higher alcohol. Don’t ferment it out and the chances are you have a slightly lower alcohol wine. This baby comes in at just 9.5% alcohol with ~ 25g/L of residual sugar.

Given the human tongue starts to detect sugar around 4g/L that’s quite a lot for our tongues to deal with so the wine needs to have some serious acidity otherwise we’ll feel like we’re drinking golden syrup. And, of course, acidity is what Riesling does well.

Can you tell how excited Riesling makes me?!

The wine

Very pale in the glass with a reasonably, but not excessively, pronounced nose. Very typical Riesling – rosewater, Turkish delight, honeysuckle with some lemon/lime in the background. Super appealing.

To describe this wine in one word, the word we choose is ‘sherberty’. Whether that is an actual word is irrelevant, as it captures the awesome combination of acidity and sugar we find in the wine. It’s a combination of crisp green apple, that green apple skin, some slices of that apple that have had a good dunking in lemon and lime juices. This all means that the sugar is not immediately apparent or overt. The mouth feel is amazing and the wine has great length.

My wine tasting note does actually include the words ‘absolutely delicious’ and ‘bloody excellent’.

$26 a bottle. I don’t get it. I really do not get why Riesling is never the ‘it’ drink. I don’t get why people pay the same money (or even more) for wines that are less exciting.

Anyway, I suppose that is a good thing – Riesling stays ludicrously cheap and there is always a hefty supply of it (much of it in my cellar).

Pewsey Vale Prima Riesling, sample. RRP $26.
Screwcap.
9.5% abv.

Tim Smith Eden Valley Viognier 2013

/ Alex Prichard

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Viognier is a grape I have a hard time getting along with so I was actually quite excited when the revamped WSET Level 2 syllabus included a Viognier in its tasting list. Now I have a legitimate excuse to try (hopefully) a range of Viogniers and see if I can come to terms with it.

This has worked in the past – I used to find Italian whites really dull but I persisted in drinking or tasting them and finally had a moment of epiphany with a Roero Arneis and from then on in it’s been a (somewhat qualified) love affair.

I used to flat out not like Viognier until I tasted a Condrieu at a wine dinner when I lived in the UK. Unfortunately, the wine retailed for around the £30-40 mark (sadly I can’t remember what it was or I’d tell you the Australian price and that would be even less affordable) and helped me make the decision I like expensive Viognier (!) and subsequently not really bother.

Viognier is a white grape which is grown in the northern Rhône, alongside Shiraz (Syrah). In the northern Rhône it may be co-fermented with Shiraz (such as in the wines of Côte Rôtie), produce single varietal whites (Condrieu, Château Grillet) or be made into white Rhône blends alongside Marsanne and Roussanne. Outside of the Rhône it is also found used in much the same way (indeed, in Australia Canberra’s Clonakilla pioneered the Rhône style Shiraz co-ferment). Really interestingly, DNA profiling suggests that Viognier is actually a grandparent of Shiraz*.

Teaching hat on – if I had to use one descriptor to describe Viognier it would be apricot. If you don’t like apricots, this is possibly not a grape variety for you!

I was really pleased with this wine (spoiler alert – subject to availability I’ll be using it again) – it shows off all the Viognier characteristics and is an all round lovely drink. The class responded equally enthusiastically so you don’t just have to take my word for it!

It is also cracking value.

The wine

In the glass, pale in colour and somewhere between straw and gold.

The nose was quite pronounced, showing stewed and tinned apricot, honey, and spices such as ginger and white pepper. The apricot was however, the dominant characteristic here.

The palate was again all about that stewed apricot but backed up with some spice. It had a lovely weight and mouth feel with definite richness and a slight oiliness. There was good persistent acidity and that pulled the spice all the way through to the end.

Tim Smith Wines, purchased from the Ed Cellars, $26.
Screwcap.
13% abv.

* Wine Grapes, by Robinson, Harding & Vouillamoz.