Viticulture

This single vineyard wine is produced from just two rows in the heart of the 52-acre, family owned Staete Landt vineyard in the renowned Rapaura area of Marlborough. The rich loamy riverbed and stony riverbank soils produce an excellent Riesling with intense flavours and robust structure. The vines were planted in 2005, making this the second vintage off these vines. We planted a total of three different clones of which only clone 110 was selected to produce this Riesling Auslese.

Bud burst and fruit set for the 2008 vintage provided the vines with perfect conditions. So much so that we had to thin the crop significantly. From January on the weather was hot and dry, with Marlborough experiencing higher than average sunshine hours and temperatures right up until April. While the days may have been warm, the nights remained cool, resulting in well balanced fruit with clean crisp acidity and intense rich, full ripe fruit flavours.

This is only the second vintage and we harvested only 1.9 tonnes of fruit, producing just 117 cases of this wine.

Harvest Dates: 29/03/2008
Brix: 21.9

Winemaking

The grapes were handpicked and carefully whole bunch pressed before being cold fermented in very old French barriques. The fermentation with a weak yeast helped retain the natural vibrant fruit aromas and flavours. Fermentation was stopped at 67 grams residual sugar; the wine was taken off its lees and matured in old oak for another five months before being bottled in October 2008.

This elegant and well structured Riesling Auslese has attractive citrus, tropical fruit and mineral notes.

Wine Analysis

Alcohol: 8.4%; Acidity: 7.7 g/l; pH: 2.77; Sugar: 67

Tasting Note

This wine is delicately scented of pink grapefruit, heritage apples and guava fruit. The elegant nose gives way to a richly texured palate of ripe apples, manuka honey and caramel characters; all evocative of tart tatin. Lifted acidity balances the wine beautifully for a lingering fresh finish. The Riesling Auslese is attractive whilst young but will gain complexity and benefit from aging for up to 10 years.