2023 Whitehaven Marlborough Riesling
$25.00
TASTING NOTE
Colour / Appearance: light yellow green with bright clarity.
Aroma / Bouquet: lemon and lime, white florals, apple and delicate spice.
Palate: Intense lemon and apple flavours with a crushed rock, mineral focus. The wine is mouth filling yet feels dry with beautifully balanced acidity and a long, crisp spicy finish.
Cellaring: We recommend drinking our Riesling when it is young and fresh, but the wine is capable of developing nicely beyond five years if carefully cellared.
Food Match: Ideally suited to Asian cuisine, crisp green salads, and ‘fusion’ dishes. This wine is excellent to whet the appetite before a meal, or to cleanse the palate afterwards.
Serve: Lightly chilled.
WINE ANALYSIS
Alcohol: 12.0%
Residual Sugar: 4.9 g/L
Titratable Acidity: 7.51 g/L
pH: 2.92
VITICULTURE & VINIFICATION
Harvest Dates: 4th and 5th of April 2023.
Climate: The growing season started with soil moisture at capacity following a wet winter. Flowering conditions in November and December were uneven across Marlborough with some sub-regions achieving a good set and crop load and others below average. Vigilance around disease pressure was paramount, with regular rain events, unusual humidity and warm nights through much of December and January. Day temperatures were cool, delaying the vine’s physiological advancement. The season turned a corner in early March with a return to cool nights and sunnier conditions allowing us to delay harvest, resulting in fruit that reached good sugar levels with attractive flavours, while disease levels remained low. Fruit condition remained very good until the end of harvest.
Grape growing: The fruit used in this Riesling is 31% from Pauls Road (Rapaura) and 69% from Awa-iti (Southern Valleys). The vines were trained to 2 or 3 cane vertical shoot position design. Throughout the growing season the vines were thoughtfully managed, with open canopies and prudent crop thinning helping to create fully ripe, clean fruit come harvest time.
Winemaking: Some fruit was machine harvested in the cool evening and pressed with minimal skin contact. The portion of hand-picked fruit was whole bunch pressed. For both components, a press cut was made to minimise harsh phenolic compounds in the wine. After settling and clarification, the juice was fermented at very low temperature with a select yeast strain to retain the fruit’s intense varietal flavours. The ferment was stopped with some residual sugar to balance the high acidity.
- Aotearoa Regional Wine Competition 2024, Silver
-
"Top notch dry Riesling from Whitehaven Wines of Marlborough. This vibrant young Riesling has zesty citrus flavours of lime, lemon and a hint of ripe grapefruit, all balanced by notes of peach and a long finish with bright acidity adding delicious length and great balance. This wine drinks beautifully now, unfolding layers of flavour on days two and three after opening, which suggests it has a long life ahead for those with wine cellars." Joelle Thomson, Wine Writer & Author, NZ, 18.5/20 Pts.
