Allinda Winery

Blending Tradition & Technology to Produce Wines of Distinction

SPARKLING & FORTIFIED WINES

Podium – Sparkling Riesling

Winemaker’s Notes

This is an exciting new addition to the Allinda range. It’s a product that I have been planning for many years. I am overwhelmingly pleased with the result.

As we all know, Champagne style sparkling wines made from the traditional varieties – Pinot and Chardonnay, require a very cool climate to allow fruit flavours to develop, whilst retaining high levels of acidity for freshness, and low levels of sugar to allow for secondary fermentation to occur in the bottle after primary fermentation of the base wine.

As the climate in Australia has become warmer, it is becoming more and more difficult to produce balanced sparkling wines in the Champagne style using Pinot and Chardonnay. In order to achieve high acidity and low sugar, the fruit is having to be picked earlier and earlier at lower and lower levels of ripeness. At such low levels of ripeness, fruit flavours are not always developing to an optimum level. Over these last 10 or so hot years, our Riesling block has consistently been producing flavour ripe fruit at low sugar levels and very high

levels of natural acidity. This is characteristic of the Riesling grape variety and ideal for producing elegant stylish sparkling wine – with fruit flavour!

My views on winemaking have always been to draw inspiration from exciting wines wherever they are to be found around the world – including France. However, our climate and soils are almost always different, and so simply trying to emulate these wines may not always prove to be the best approach. Rather, we should create our own exciting styles, inspired by wines from around the world that have excited us.

Podium is one such wine that we have created. The base wine was picked at optimum ripeness to achieve fruit flavour, whilst retaining low sugar and high natural acidity. The base wine was fermented very simply and cleanly to reflect the natural characteristics of the grape variety and the vineyard site.

Secondary fermentation was carried out in the bottle, as per the traditional method used for producing premium sparkling wines. It was allowed to rest on yeast lees in the bottle for a relatively short period of time – 9 months. This allowed sufficient time to produce some subtle yeasty/bready aromas, a fine bead (small bubbles) and a creamy/foamy mousse on the palate, but short enough to ensure that the Riesling fruit flavours are retained.

Tasting Notes

Very fruity, lifted citrus/passionfruit nose. Fine, creamy mousse on the palate. Orange rind, almond kernel and fresh bread flavours.

$24.00

2005 Double Picked Riesling

This is a unique wine made from our own Yarra Valley vineyard fruit. It is unique because it does not fall into any traditional style of winemaking. It was conceived out of marrying my interest in fortified wines with a the need to solve a potential problem that had arisen in the vineyard – in very much the same way that originally led to the production of Champagne and the great Botrytis wines of Sauternes.

Mid-season rain caused some berries in our Riesling block to swell and break away from the stalks. Subsequent dry weather shrivelled these berries - making them unsuited to producing fine, delicate Riesling wine.

Assessment of the shrivelled grapes showed that they had fruit flavour. It also showed that it had sugar levels ideally sought for making Port style wines. The acid level however was much higher – similar to that of the great Ice wines of Germany. It was decided to use these grapes to make a fortified “White Port” style of wine with dessert levels of alcohol, but with the freshness and fruit intensity only offered by the Riesling grape variety.

A mechanical harvester was set to pick the non-shrivelled berries first for our Silver medal winning dry Riesling. The machine was then reset to pick the remaining shrivelled berries for this wine.

After a very short fermentation on the shrivelled skins overnight, the still very sweet juice was pressed and fortified with brandy spirit. It was then matured for one year in old oak barrels to allow the fruit and spirit flavours to integrate.

The lusciousness, intense fruit flavours and perfect acid balance make this wine a perfect accompaniment to strongly flavoured cheese or any sweet dessert.

$21.50