I didn't taste every Australian Riesling from the 2005 vintage (far from it) but, of those I did, this was my favourite on release. I remember a wine of beautifully austere aromatics, steely palate and extraordinary acidity. I also remember buying a fair few to cellar. I don't have much experience with this label over time, though, so the cellaring adventure is a bit of an unknown. One wouldn't expect such a highly structured Riesling to change substantially in three years, but I am still interested to know how it's travelling, and hence checked a bottle out of storage to see.
Bang; lime sherbet and talc, just as I remembered. In fact, this wine seems not to have budged at all, at least on first sniff. It's still a very high toned aroma profile, good complexity, with a feeling of weightlessness and intensity all at once. The palate, by contrast, is showing the first hints of development. There's no overt honey or toast as yet, but there is a fullness of fruit weight that I didn't observe in the young wine.
Entry is tingly with acid that starts bright but quickly moderates to a level allowing fuller lime sherbet notes to show through. Mind you, this is far from a relaxed wine, and acid still dances down either side of the tongue, keeping fruit flavour focused down the centre line. Steely mineral notes take over from the middle palate and tip the wine towards a fairly extreme austerity of flavour. Not to all tastes, perhaps, but I dig it. Flavour shows good intensity in the context of an assertive structure. Just after the mid-palate, the acidity kicks back in and fairly swamps the tongue, temporarily erasing fruit flavour but creating the most beguiling textural experience. Acidity fades on the finish, leaving in its wake echoes of lime and talc that linger on most satisfyingly.
This wine's structure is still the key, and dominant, feature of this wine, although the gradually accumulating fruit weight promises some interesting times ahead. Overall, I prefer the more extreme expression of structure shown by this wine on release, and consider the wine right now to be in a slightly awkward stage of development. Good bones, though. I'm expecting very good things.
Price: $A30
Closure: Stelvin
Date tasted: July 2008
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