Riesling “Watervale” Clare Valley 2022 – Mount Horrocks
£25.18
Youthful lime green that will develop in time. Delicate spring blossom and lime leaf with a hint of spice. Crunchy green apple and crisp, vibrant and distinctive lemon-lime citrus flavours create a juicy and tangy mouthfeel. Almost ethereally light and elegant; its minerality wafting along the palate to a long, pleasing close. Impressively delicious and worthy of at least a few years cellaring, if not more than a decade.
29 in stock
The grapes to produce the Riesling “Watervale” Clare Valley Mount Horrocks were hand picked in the cool of the morning, cool crushed and destemmed with only the free run juice used. The must was fermented by neutral yeasts in stainless steel tanks and fermented to dryness. No malolactic fermentation occurred to allow the pure expression of the variety and single vineyard site to shine through. The wine was bottled without fining.
The fruit comes from a single, unirrigated, hand-pruned vineyard in Watervale. The 2.2 hectare, low-yielding vineyard has a north-facing aspect and lies at 460 metres above sea level. The soils are a mixture of red loam over limestone. The Riesling vines were originally two wire trained (the majority of Clare Valley producers still use the traditional two wire training system). Stephanie, however, chose to change the training system so that the canopies are now trained upwards, with foliage wires and Vertical Shoot Positioning.
Mount Horrocks is owned by winemaker Stephanie Toole, who restricts production to approximately 2,500 cases per year in order to achieve her aims of quality and single-vineyard expression. The Clare Valley winery was established in 1980 and purchased by Stephanie in 1993, since then she has made significant improvements to the wines, vineyards and winery. In 2014, the winery and vineyards were organically certified by the ACO (Australian Certified Organic). Stephanie describes her wines as ‘hand-made food wines’ with an emphasis on structure as well as generous fruit flavours. All grapes are estate grown and hand picked from two organically managed vineyards: the ‘Cordon Cut’ vineyard at Auburn close to the cellar door, planted only to Riesling; and the ‘Alexander’ vineyard at Watervale for Riesling, Semillon, Nero d’Avola, Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz. She has a total of nearly 10 hectares of vines. Stephanie’s persistence with classic, no-compromise winemaking and a fully integrated organic approach to growing sets Mount Horrocks wines apart from the mainstream.
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