A dry winter in 2007 was followed by some unusually cold spring weather in October which combined to reduce cropping levels. A benign late spring and early summer allowed for even and clean fruit development and harvest of Riesling began in early March.
The 2008 season has delivered us fine and linear Riesling fruit flavours: lime juice and some white flowers from Mount Barker and tight minerally and lime skin characters from the Porongurups. A small component of Frankland Riesling of outstanding structure and acidity was included for the first time.
The fruit upon arrival at the winery was immediately processed to ensure the highest quality juice. Only free run juice, which is tighter and more finely structured as it has no phenolic character, was used for this wine.
Most batches showed wonderfully restrained Riesling aromatics, fine elegant fruit and great length. We kept 15 individual batches separate which were cool fermented in stainless steel tanks to maintain the delicate fruit flavours.
Extensive blending trials of the free run batches were carried out to produce a wine that is very elegant but still powerful.
