Crawford River Riesling is a particularly fine, mineral expression of the Crawford River site and the season – and is always an exciting release each year.

Tasting Notes:

Crawford River Riesling always takes a while to wake up and will continue to come out of its shell in the coming year.

It leads with crushed rock & chalky minerality.

Following on the nose is citrus, fruit and florals. Layers of kafir lime, white nectarine & apple blossom.

The palate is textured and complex with the minerality continuing on the palate which is a hallmark of this site.

The fruit is layered and intense with nashi pear, white nectarine and grapefruit with soft acidity lending incredible length to finish.

This wine is ready to drink however will benefit from more time in the bottle.

Winemaking:

The fruit is carefully hand harvested and taken to the winery when flavours are at a peak.

This wine is made with a large percentage of whole-bunch pressed fruit, along with some crushed fruit.

A short, natural settle in tank preceded spontaneous fermentation with naturally occurring yeasts.

After fermentation, the wine spent around 5 weeks on lees prior to racking, sulphur addition and blending.

Cold stabilised. Not fined. Bottled September 2022.

Season Notes:

The 2021/22 growing season got off to a rocky start, with the Victoria weather throwing a combination of heavy rain, wildly oscillating temperatures and destructive winds.

From the end of November though, the clouds cleared, and the season flipped on its head to become relatively dry.

December proved a relatively warm month and resulted in terrific fruit set across varieties.

The end of the season was mild, meaning ripening progressed very evenly.

Colour, acid and tannin all developed beautifully, as did flavours, leading to fabulous fruit being harvested.

About Crawford River Vineyard:

The fruit for this wine is sourced from the original Crawford River vines. In 1975/6 our first Riesling blocks were planted on two gentle ridges lying side by side.

Sharing a similar NNW aspect and very similar soil composition, both blocks have a dominance of gravelly, ironstonerich, free draining clay loam.

A further block planted in 1977 tends to a WNW aspect, has less gravel, more sandy loam, and closer proximity to its limestone base.

The Crawford River team find the combined expression of these soils to be delicate, showing white florals aromatically and layers of mineral, textural intensity throughout the palate.

All the Crawford River riesling clones are G198.