WTN: Riesling and Rocks

Clear straw yellow with a petrol and lemon nose.

Austere bone dry riesling with bracing acidity, petrol, lemon fruit and lots of minerality. Nice long acidic finish. A bit austere to sip, but it was nice with our dinner. The turkey, mixed vegetable, basmati rice medley (called unstuffed peppers) was really a nice match for the riesling. It took the edge off of the acidity and brought out the minerals and fruit. Good food wine!

Wine: 2003 Clare Valley Riesling, Polish Hill River by The Wilson Vineyards. 13% abv.

John Wilson makes one of the Clare Valley's best, ageworthy Riesling's - intensely floral when young, brimming with crunchy, citrus fruit, a distinct mineral core and backed by nicely judged, bracing acidity. IIRC, he always makes it well known on the back label, these wines are not intended for immediate gratification. In fact, I've tried a few older vintages some with up to fifteen years under their belt (e.g the 1991), that still look vibrant and fresh underneath the honey, petrol and toast characters that become more prominent with extended bottle age.

Thanks for the note, Tom.

FWIW, I've included my July 2006 TN for the wonderful 1998 I'm still slowly working my way through, to further illustrate this wine's aging curve -

A superb example of Polish Hill Riesling revealing classic aged bottled characters and an almost indelible freshness. Displaying a youthful bright light yellow colour, the bouquet offers up an intriguing amalgam of honey, freshly squeezed limes, toast and just a whiff of petrol. In the mouth, the wine excels with a superb richness of nuance as detailed above, gorgeous mouthfilling texture, seamlessly meshed to very fine minerally acidity, followed by a gloriously mature honeyed, but still refreshing, departure suggesting this wine is close to reaching its' zenith. Drink now-2012. 93 points. Brilliant, for what it is! 12.5% A/V and sealed with a conventional cork.

Thanks for the tasting note David. I would definitely agree that this riesling has the stuff to age for a considerable number of years. This wine has the most minerality that I have ever tasted in a riesling. I tend to like German style rieslings the most, but I think I could get used to this type of wine if I could leave it alone long enough to age in my cellar! The one thing that surprised me about this wine was the distinctive petrol on the nose. It smelled to me like a more aged wine than it was because of the well-developed petrol. I received this wine as a gift from my brother and he really thinks its long finish is its best feature.

http://www.wilsonvineyard.com.au