Derwent Estate Riesling 2010 (Derwent Valley, Tasmania)
12%, Screwcap, $25
Source: Sample
www.derwentestate.com.au

Derwent Estate Riesling Drink it by the jug

If anything, Tasmania remains the promised land of Australian Riesling, a part of Australia that has always hinted that it could be a superior place (for this most superior grapes), but has yet to produce a definitive wine. In many ways this is a style issue, as ‘Tassie style Riesling’ really doesn’t stand for all that much right now. It will though, and I think if anywhere in Australia can pull off an ‘off dry’ Rizza it’s Tasmania. Watch this space….

As for this wine? Well it’s simply delicious. Simple because it’s not a super complex wine, nor is it blindingly intense, but what it does do is present a rather juicy, lightly sweet style that is refreshing, surprisingly minerally and altogether quite well balanced. It’s the sort of wine that you’re halfway through a second glass before you begin to acknowledge it’s more serious side and then follow it up with another glass. Drinkability is not a problem here, though it’s not quite at the ‘I’d bathe in it’ stage’.

It’s a quite green appley wine actually, with a floral, jasmines and apple nose that is sweetened by just a hint of sherbety residual sugar. The palate is quite a tangy thing too, a bit of a an apple margarita wine with a spoonful of sugar and a lovely acid line through the finish. Clear, vibrant and pebbley fresh it’s a rather friendly wine if ever there was one.

I liked it and it went down well with the small group of imbibers/booze hounds with me, even though a few remarked that they found it just a little simple (which I’m not going to disagree with). Nice wine regardless. 17.6/91