If memory serves correctly, this is the fourth bottle of this wine I’ve drunk. The first I enjoyed in Perth in September 2002; the second a few years ago in Seattle, the third in March of 2008, and now it’s time to revisit it again. Julian had a bottle last July; I wrote about it last March, and here we are again.Impossibly light, this wine reminds me of goose fat, smoking autumn leaves, rose petals that have lost their sweetness, tarragon, and hay. What fruit there is stone: peach and apricot, slightly dried. A sip of this is revelation: it’s rich, thick, full, wonderfully situated in the mouth. A swallow thins it all out, leaving gentle talc, an amazingly length finish of minerals and pale honeys, full acidity that leaves your mouth watering for more, more, more. The closest wine this comes to (for me, at any rate) is vintage Champagne; there’s almost the same order of toastiness here which I find surprising and entrancing. This wine has moved emphatically beyond the lime-soaked babe I remember from 2002 and into an entirely other world: this is dead serious and tastes like it should have cost the earth, which it thankfully didn’t.There’s no sweetness here to speak of but is there light? Yes, abundantly so.[Postscript: I didn’t read Julian’s note until after writing this one – and yes, Julian, I don’t detect any petrol here at all. I’m not sure what I was thinking when I wrote that earlier note last year – I suppose I was just being lazy in describing the wine, going not with what I actually perceived but instead cribbing from the default Aged Aussie Riesling note. My apologies.]Grosset
Price: $26
Closure: Cork
There’s always bottle variation…
It’s fortuitous that we’ve collectively taken the time to write this up several times. When it was newly released, I had an especially hard time with it. You may have in fact tasted this five times, for I distinctly remember us having it together before you headed back home in late 2002. In any case, it seemed so unyielding at the time that I struggled to appreciate its qualities.
Our notes are remarkably coincident, especially with regard to the wine’s mix of power and lightness.
Oh dear, there was a fifth? I am truly spoiled. I’m also mortified that I can’t even remember when my friends bring out the big guns. Embarrassing!
I’m curious as to where this wine is supposed to go from here; I can’t really imagine it getting any better than it is right now. I’m also thinking it’s time to start drinking all of those 2002 riesling I stockpiled back in 2003 – if memory serves, I’ve got a few cases that presumably are ready to drink now. I sense a themed summer coming up…
I think it was comprehensively outclassed at the time, and the only reason I remember drinking it is that it mystified me.
Your bottle sounds slightly more advanced than the one I had a few months ago. From memory, I earmarked my next bottle for consumption in a 2010-11 timeframe. The equivalent Watervale struck me as more “in the zone,” with an amazing combination of primary and aged flavours.
But yes, it would be interesting to start sampling the 2002s. Maybe we should do a virtual tasting for one of them 🙂