Adelina Polish Hill River Riesling 2023 (6 Bottles)

by Principal Wines

$172.00 GST Included

AUSTRALIA WIDE SHIPPING INCLUDED

93 Points, WineFront

Adelina’s Polish Hill River Riesling is drawn from Lyn and Robert Jaeschke’s Hill River Estate, planted in 2000 at 460 metres above sea level on grey-brown loam over shale and sandy limestone.

Col’s preference is always to pick the fruit relatively early to retain acidity but also avoid TDN, the compound responsible for giving the kerosene character sometimes found in Rieslings where the grapes have been exposed to excess sun. The fruit was destemmed and crushed before pressing, then the free-run juice was settled, racked and fermented to dryness.

Bone dry and just shy of 11%, it’s a more restrained release than the Watervale. Col notes that his wines from this site are getting finer every year, and this is a great example of the progression. Laser-guided wet stone, jasmine and lime skin on the nose give rise to a tightly coiled palate wrapped around a crystalline spine of acidity. An Australian Riesling of wonderful grace and class.

At 10.2% alcohol—and with rapier-like 9.9 g/L acidity—this is the more tensile and austere of Adelina’s two 2021 Clare Rieslings. Subtle kaffir lime, jasmine and saline notes build as this sits in the glass and there is palpable intensity to the fruit on the long, dazzling finish. The 2021 is a classic in the making and, while it can be enjoyed now with sashimi or grilled whiting, there is a feeling it will evolve and become more complex over the next ten, if not twenty, years.

This mature vineyard is rooted in grey-brown loam on shale and sandy limestone. The fruit was de-stemmed and crushed before pressing. The free-run juice was then settled, racked and fermented to dryness in tank.

This is just gorgeous–superb lime zest and sherbet aromatics lead to a fleshy yet juicy, sappy and driven palate with fabulous depth and loads of character and length.

“Tight and intense, lemon-lime, a stony and shell-like texture, nervy and zesty, with a racy slightly sappy finish of good length. I reckon it needs a year or two to settle down.” 93+ Gary Walsh, The Wine Front

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Description

About Adelina

We are a small vineyard and winery in the Springfarm sub-region of Clare, set amongst one of the most historically relevant winery and vineyards in Australia.

We run our farm with organic principles. The plantings of well established Shiraz, Grenache and Pedro Ximenez, some dating back to the turn of the 20th century and recent plantings, of Shiraz, Mataro and Malbec are NASAA certified.

We also work with a very small group of grape growers in Clare and the Adelaide Hills whom grow fruit for our non-estate wines. The winery is rustic in a sense of mod-cons and mechanisation, where the most elaborate piece of equipment would be the coffee machine.

At present we’re focusing our efforts on the vineyard, unfortunately tastings are not available.

The equation is blissfully straightforward:

A cool and dry vintage
+     low yields
+     Adelina
=     wines with pristine fruit and beautiful natural acidity.

The upside is arguably the finest set of Adelina Rieslings to date, and a pair of wines naturally true to site. The downside: with yields even lower than in 2020, this year’s release will not last long. We know of Col McBryde’s love of tension, so it’s no surprise that his ‘21s are mouth-wateringly precise and classically structured. The vintage has also bestowed the kind of depth and purity of fruit that makes these wines so delicious straight out of the gates.

While it’s only about a fifteen-minute drive from Watervale to Polish Hill River, these two sub-regions produce distinctly different wines. As Col puts it, Watervale’s red loams produce wines with more up-front fruit, zest and lime; while Polish Hill River’s slate and limestone-rich soils result in wines that are leaner and more restrained.

Again, volumes are super-low this year so if you would like to secure a parcel of either wine, please let us know sooner rather than later!polish hill river riesling

Principal Wines

We are wine lovers with no agenda, except to work with people who grow grapes, and to put their wines into the hands of people we respect.

We bring many years’ collective experience working in restaurants and winemaking to Principal Wine and think we have a pretty good idea of how a great glass of wine tastes.

Things change all the time in the world of wine, but our core values always remain the same - to work with people who make their wine in the vineyard, to have fine wine to sell to places we’d like to drink ourselves, and to provide excellent service.

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