Young or old: the eternal riesling conundrum

Riesling - one of the world's great grape varieties. Versatile and usually affordable. 

From Alsace to Australia, however, there is one great conundrum for wine lovers: when to drink their rieslings? 

Young rieslings, particularly from Australia, are usually dry and high in acid. 

Give them a couple of years and they retain their citrus fruit flavours but soften. A few more years in bottle and they develop honeyed, toasty or kerosene characters. 

This is also true of the delicate, less ripe rieslings from Germany and Austria, and slightly sweeter styles from New Zealand. 

In the first 12 months of their lives, Aussie rieslings offer lashings of lime, lemon and grapefruit flavours and searing acidity. 

A decade or so on they are completely different beasts; mature and mellow. 

To explore the many facets of riesling, Henschke, Howard Park and Taylors Wines hosted a recent Museum & Current Release tasting. 

The wines involved were the Henschke 2007 and 2021 Julius Riesling from Eden Valley; the Taylors 2012 and 2019 St Andrews Riesling from the Clare Valley and Howard Park 2010 Museum Release and 2020 Mount Barker Riesling from Western Australia. 

The wines were offered in tiny tasting-sized bottles by Trust In Taste (above), so were not able to be tasted with food afterwards, or sampled a day later. 

We were joined by Justine Henschke, Mitchell Taylor and Richard Burch from Howard Park; all of whom are passionate about quality rieslings. 

All three producers use screw caps to ensure their wines maintain integrity. 

"One of the intriguing thing about these wines is that they retain their freshness under screw caps," says Henschke. "There is a richness, oiliness and opulence to our 2007, while in maintains fruit character.

"We  believe aged riesling is a style with celebrating and we have found we can't release enough to keep our customers happy." 

Mitchell Taylor noted the "secondary aromatics, toast and honey" in the 2012 St Andrews and said: "We are holding back greater volumes of older wines to meet a growing demand from collectors."

Likewise, Burch says older Howard Park rieslings are "a revelation", still concentrated and hitting their stride at 10-15 years of age. 

Call me a philistine, but while there is a definite place for older rieslings - particularly with food - I just love the exuberance and vitality of younger rieslings, perhaps at 1-2 years of age. 

The 2021 Julius is dry, aromatic, floral and wonderfully pure; the St Andrews has a delicious line of limey acid in its adolescence and the Howard Park 2020 definete regional minerality and textural appeal. 

And the winners are...wine consumers offered the choice between such contrasting styles.    

 

  

Why distinguished sites matter to Australia's family wineries

The French word terroir encompasses the natural environment in which a wine is produced, including factors such as the soil, topography, and climate.

They believe the tastes and textures of a wine are majorly influenced by where is is grown: the terroir.

Indigenous Australians have a similar concept, known as pangkarra.

Four of Australia's leading family wineries go together for Zoom tastings this week in which they explored what they call "distinguished sites" - vineyards that produce top-quality fruit each vintage. 

Howard Park, Taylors, Brown Brothers and Yalumba looked at key sites in Western Australia, the Clare Valley, Victoria and the Barossa, discussing the key elements involved in growing fruit for benchmark wines. 

All four wineries are part of the group Australia's First Families of Wine and they each presented a shiraz and a cabernet sauvignon that reflected their terroir. Blend PR put together the event.

The representatives were Nic Bowen (below) from Howard Park talking about vineyards in Margaret River and the Great Southern, Mitchell Taylor (above) from Taylors on the St Andrews vineyard in Clare, Tracy Taylor from Yalumba looking at the Barossa and Eden valleys and Coonawarra, and Andrew Harris from Brown Brothers talking about various sites in regional Victoria. 

Yalumba alone has no fewer than 123 grape growers on its books - in addition to its estate vineyards - so it needs to know where its best sites are for wines like The Cigar, a Coonawarra cabernet, and the Paradox shiraz. 

Similarly, Brown Brothers has access to a wide range of resources for its Patricia Shiraz and Cabernet, while Mitchell Taylor concentrated on the "diversities and synergies" of just one standout vineyard.

Bowen looked at they key elements in the Scottsdale Shiraz from the Great Southern and the Leston cabernet from Margaret River. 

"This was a great collaboration between like-minded family wineries," said Mitchell Taylor. "It was an excellent opportunity to give members of the wine trade and media a look at our various and different vineyards." 

Regional expression, and terroir, are alive and well in Australia.

# Some of my favourite wines of the night are pictured above.

So you enjoy your rieslings with a few years of age?

The Howard Park rieslings from West Australia are renowned for benefitting from a few years in the cellar. 

Good news for lazy wine lovers is that the Burch family - owners of Howard Park - are prepared to do the cellaring for you. 

Howard Park Wines has just unveiled the eighth riesling release in its Museum Series, re-releasing the 2014 Mount Barker Riesling.

The Mount Barker and Porongurup sub-regions of Western Australia’s Great Southern experienced warm to hot conditions throughout the entire vintage period but ocean breezes helped the vines. 

In the making of this wine, each vineyard block is vinified separately in stainless steel tanks. The free-run juice is racked before a long and cold fermentation to preserve character and fruit flavours. Blending occurs in June of the vintage year. 

In a nod to Howard Park's history, the label design for the 2014 Museum Release Riesling commemorates the inaugural 1986 Riesling with original artwork created by the late artist Denise Bowen, mother to now Howard Park Wines chief winemaker Nic Bowen.

The artwork draws inspiration from the Great Southern landscape with a colourful depiction of the Marri and Karri trees, which are unique to the region.

“A tasting of this wine seven years ago showed the wet slate notes that are so typical of the Great Southern region. Over time, the notes of lemon and lime have softened, giving way to secondary flavours such as praline and brioche,” said Howard Park Wines director of winemaking Janice McDonald. 

“As our Museum Series has shown in the past, it will continue to age, grow and evolve the longer that it’s cellared. It is a wine that sits beautifully amongst the line-up of museum releases and we’re proud to celebrate this release with Denise Bowen’s beautiful artwork.”

The Museum Series offers an opportunity to get a taste of rare back vintage wines without the difficulty of storing the wines for future enjoyment.

The Howard Park Museum Release Riesling 2014 (RRP $41) is now available to members of the Howard Park Wine Club before being released to the public in late 2021.

See www.howardparkwines.com.au