Grosset Springvale Riesling 2011
Situated off Springvale Road in one of the highest parts of Watervale, Grosset’s six hectare vineyard is on a gentle slope with red loamy soil over limestone. This is a single site white with 30 previous vintages of Grosset Watervale Riesling giving it a remarkable provenance. There was a time when wine writers, with plenty of justification, described the Watervale Riesling as the wine to drink while you waited for the ‘Polish Hill’ to be less tight, ungiving and steely. While the ‘Springvale’ doesn’t have the austerity of the ‘Polish Hill’, it appears to have crept closer to its sibling in quality terms and ageability.
The 2011 Grosset Springvale Riesling has wonderful, ethereal aromatics, fragrant lemongrass and freshly squeezed lime, intense lime pith and pure lemony flavours with some wet pebble minerals notes, a mid-palate fleshiness before its tight, lean structure follows through to a cleansing minerally finish that is slatey, powerfully focused and piercingly long.
General Cellaring Guide: Enjoy now or cellar 5-12 years.
Release date: 1 September 2011
Reviews
Tyson Stelzer ‘Wine Taste Weekly’ Edition 28 19 August 2011
Some Clare rieslings have suffered this year but here’s proof generalisations are pointless. A classic Grosset without a molecule out of place, singing with a fragrance of white flowers and citrus blossom. It’s poised, pure and lively, lingering with mineral structure and sensational line and length. Drink 2011-2012 or 2018-2023. 95 points
Huon Hooke ‘Gourmet Traveller Wine’ February/March 2012
Excellent penetration, line and length. Lots of nuances: dried and fresh flowers, and herbs; a hint of yeastiness, subtle spices and citrus fruits. Intense and lively in the mouth, refined and taut, with energy and length. 95 points
Sarah Ahmed www.thewinedetective.co.uk/blog 21 September 2011
Wonderfully perfumed with lightly musky rose petals and bath salts it might be but, make no mistake, there’s plenty of muscle, tight clenched at that, to this Watervale Riesling. In the mouth there’s a long and lingering quinine edge to its visceral lemon pip palate. Terrific palate presence and length.
