Riesling

Riesling is the most versatile variety of all and in our climate is capable of producing wines of an exceptional standard.

Depending on the structure of the fruit we produce either dry or sweet low alcohol wines modeled on German Rieslings from the Mosel/Saar/Ruwer region. The dry wines are quite austere and focused and ideal with many seafood entrées. The sweet wines are often very sweet but never “sticky” with alcohols as low as 7-8%.

Terminology
The fruit for our wines are all sourced from the same vineyards using the traditional selection process of German Rieslings; using a terminology that is not well understood in New World countries. The terminology is based on how the grapes are selected in the vineyard.
First the ripest berries or bunches are harvested in several select pickings to produce the more concentrated sweet wines, this is then followed by further select pickings to produce the less sweet wines.

Trockenbeerenauslese
Individual dry berry selection

Beerenauslese
Individual berry selection of ripe slightly shrivelled berries

Auslese
Selection of very ripe whole or part bunches

Spätlese
What is left on the vines with usually less sweetness and intensity and translates to “late harvest”.

The dry Marlborough climate, together with careful canopy management in the vineyard allows us to eliminate all botrytis in our sweet wines. This way we maintain a sound acid/pH structure and hence elegance and freshness despite the high residual sugar. Equally important, we are able to preserve the purity and finesse of the Riesling fruit with no distraction of botrytis related flavours in the wines.