What happens when you take Jeffrey Grosset’s unrelenting love for riesling, famous fastidiousness and impressive capacity for worry, turn up the dial on everything and let it all simmer for a decade? You get a brandy unlike any I’ve ever tasted.Over five decades Grosset has established himself as the pre-eminent name in Australian riesling. His wines are recognised globally as the archetype for the classically pure, dry style that the Clare Valley does so well. But in the background, a long and ever-evolving interest in distillation has quietly simmered. One of Grosset’s earliest jobs involved working with Phillip John at Seppeltsfield. The nature of that business required a hard working still, both for brandy production and the spirit required for its legendary fortified wines. The knowledge gained in those early years has been dusted off now and then in the decades since. Grosset has long produced a kind of “eau de vie” from riesling grapes.It’s very good, but more a curio than anything else, something interesting to offer the loyalists who love anything he might do with riesling and an opportunity to indulge his higher proof urges. But a decade ago, Grosset began to wrestle with a more ambitious idea. While brandy had been traditionally produced using relatively neutral grape varieties like ugni blanc and fruit quality wasn’t always a serious concern because double distillation and extended ageing in oak could be relied upon to mask inherent flaws.
The economics have always played a part, too. The large quantity of fruit required to produce a relatively small amount of spirit makes the idea of using the very best grapes something akin to madness. Grosset can live with that accusation. Some of the very same fruit that went to his world famous rieslings was allocated for the project and the man who has done more than anyone to educate the world on the distinct personalities of Clare’s famed Polish Hill and Watervale subregions opted for the latter, feeling its little extra fullness and weight might best serve distilling ends. The result is remarkable. The worrying worthwhile.

Grosset XO Brandy
$865 (700ml)

Premium riesling fruit is sourced from Watervale, specifically the 110 Clone riesling planted on bony soils in the Rookwood vineyard. A single distillation of surprising purity and clarity. Grosset was amazed by how quickly the character of the spirit emerged in the distillation and how far it stretched. None of the typical cuts of heads, hearts and tails applied here. Grosset innately felt French oak from the Tronçais forest would be best suited for maturation, so several 50-litre casks were commissioned. All that effort, obsessing, worrying and waiting has produced something remarkable, a brandy of detailed complexity that still retains the intrinsic beauty of great Watervale riesling. It’s lifted and ethereal, offering up abundant citrus blossom, wild honey, candied angelica, sandalwood and both the scorched crunch and creamy caress of a great crème brulée. The oak delivers warm spices and the scents of old hallways, caressing and elevating the spirit, but never drying it out. One of the most uniquely beautiful brandies on the planet.

Nick Ryan, The Weekend Australian Magazine

256 bottles made.
45% alcohol
97 points