Review: Memories of distant Fridays with Dom Torzi’s blazing new Frost Dodger Riesling 2021

Almost twenty years ago now. I was working in a small, but great, wine shop on Sydney’s North Shore. On Thursday/Friday/Sat nights we would often ‘ullage’ a bottle of wine to drink with takeaway from the Thai restaurant next door – which basically means we’d open a bottle as a taster, and claim it back as a ‘damaged’ bottle from the winery rep.

They were good times.

Of all the wines, on all the nights, the only ones that still stick with me were all very young (less than 12 months old), fresh, vital, dry Riesling.

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Just like this Torzi Matthews Frost Dodger Riesling 2021.

There’s an irrepressibility to this wine, and the Clare/Eden/Canberra/Great Southern etc wines of its ilk which is what drew me in.

Something unquestioned.

Something undeniable, that you don’t see in a top Shiraz or even a storied Chardonnay.

I think it’s the flavour intensity – it doesn’t stop. Celery, lime, grapefruit. The acid charges on through nose and palate – yes, you can smell the acidity. Then, although the wine has physically left your mouth, it leaves an imprint. A permanent memory, just like those Grossets, O’Leary Walkers and Pewsey Vales of almost twenty years ago.

I loved (and still love) those wines, and I love this new Frost Dodger. It’s exactly what Andrew of 2003 would have coveted, and I admire now.

To think, you can have such world-class purity and intensity, for just $28?

Buy all you can. Heck, I may even be underselling the score, as this is just as good as a $60 Polish Hill. Do it.

Torzi Matthews Frost Dodger Riesling 2021 Best drinking: I like drinking these either within the first 12 months since harvest (so, by March next year), or waiting 3 years, then drinking for the next 25 years after that. 18.7/20, 95/100. 12.5%, $28. Torzi Matthews website. Would I buy it? In a heartbeat.