2023 F-Series Old Vine Riesling

GROWING SEASON & FRUIT SELECTION

The 2022/23 growing season was one that hung in the balance.  An excellent fruit set saw extra work being put in to moderate the crop loads in our premium blocks.  Leading in to harvest we were pleased to see well ripened, clean fruit, with great flavour.

Careful fruit selection was required from our 43 year old Riesling vines which are all under Organic management.  The soils here are made up of fist sized greywacke stones (a hard, dark type of sandstone streaked with quartz and feldspar), mixed alluvial gravel and silts.  Vineyard practice for this wine is geared to produce ripe grapes that have had maximum "hang time" on the vine to develop concentrated and vivid flavours.

WINEMAKING

Fruit was all hand harvested prior to any significant botrytis infection.  90% was immediately whole bunch pressed to tank, settled for 6 hours and then run to Acacia barrel and concrete egg fermenters for spontaneous fermentation.  The remaining 10% was destemmed and went through partial fermentation on skins prior to being pressed off to ceramic jars to complete ferment.  The various components were then left un-sulphured on full ferment lees for 10 months before being blended and bottled.

ACID: 7.0 g/l
pH: 3.25
ALC: 13.0% vol
RS: 3.5 g/l