Riesling Fever gets Sydney in its grip

This sum­mer sees Syd­ney cel­e­brat­ing every­thing Ries­ling, and a key high­light is the Ries­ling Fever tast­ing to be held at Doltone House on Mon­day Feb­ru­ary 6^th at 5.30pm.

Around 30 pro­duc­ers will be offer­ing tast­ings of their finest drops at this casual event, which is to be hosted by West­ern Australia’s Fran­k­land Estate. Inter­na­tional icons such as Dr Loosen, Hey­mann Lowen­stein, Ch. Ste Michelle and Wil­helm Weil will be rep­re­sented, along with top Aus­tralian pro­duc­ers includ­ing Gros­set, Clon­akilla, Craw­ford River and Henschke.

The tast­ing will also show­case the impor­tant new names in Ries­ling, and the new emerg­ing regions from around the world, offer­ing a great oppor­tu­nity for dis­cov­ery and learning.

Ries­ling Fever is sup­ported by spe­cial­ist wine store Annan­dale Cel­lars, who will have a selec­tion of Ries­lings avail­able to pur­chase on the night.

Annan­dale Cel­lars’ Chris Fos­ter said, “This tast­ing will be the most com­pre­hen­sive show­case of ries­lings we have ever seen in Syd­ney and we are very excited to be involved.”

“Ries­ling has been a neglected and mis­un­der­stood grape vari­ety for years in Aus­tralia, but the fact is that no other vari­ety con­sis­tently deliv­ers the excep­tional quality-for-price that ries­ling does, whether to drink-now or to cel­lar, and we are at last see­ing a resur­gence in inter­est for this noble grape,” he said.

Ries­ling Fever is part of the two-day Fran­k­land Estate Inter­na­tional Ries­ling Tast­ing, being held on Feb­ru­ary 6^th and 7^th in Syd­ney. Tick­ets to ‘Fever’ are $40 per head and can be pur­chased online at www.feirt.com.au.

James Hal­l­i­day reviewed Fran­k­land Estate’s new release 2011 ries­lings on his Aus­tralian Wine Com­pan­ion web site and

newslet­ter ( dated 12 Jan­u­ary 2012) rat­ing the wines an impres­sive 97, 96, 94 and 92 points.

This is what he had to say about each of the wines.

SmithCul­lam Ries­ling 2011

Light, pos­i­tive straw-green; made in (just) off-dry mode, with 19g/l of resid­ual sugar. Just when you think this is merely

another Mosel copy­cat, the aston­ish­ing drive and inten­sity of the palate makesthe half-formed words describ­ing the bouquet

com­pletely irrel­e­vant. It demon­strates how great ries­ling (more than any other vari­ety with the pos­si­ble excep­tion of semillon)

is made in the vineyard.

97 points; drink to 2031; screw­cap; 11˚alc; $45

Net­ley Road Vine­yard Ries­ling 2011

Dis­tinctly deeper straw-green colour; the bou­quet has hints of herb and stone which in no way pre­pare you for the iron

fist-in-a-velvet-glove assault of the palate, its power unfold­ing in waves, min­eral, lime zest and rapier-like acid­ity dominating

the back-palate and finish.

96 points; drink to 2030; screw­cap; 12.7˚alc; $27

Iso­la­tion Ridge Vine­yard Ries­ling 2011

Pale straw-green; it has a shy, flo­ral bou­quet with hints of spice and apple, then a beau­ti­fully struc­tured, supremely delicate,

palate; unfolds on the fin­ish and after­taste with mouth­wa­ter­ing, cit­russy acidity.

94 points; drink to 2026; screw­cap; 12˚alc; $32

Poi­son Hill Vine­yard Ries­ling 2011

Light straw-green; much more expres­sive than Iso­la­tion Ridge at this early stage, with fra­grant lime blos­som ris­ing from the

glass at the first swirl, and fills the mouth with its bold and ripe flavours. Is the most pre­co­cious of the ’11 Fran­k­land Estate Rieslings.

92 points; drink to 2020; screw­cap; 11° alc; $ 27

A 70 year old Ries­ling is just one of the many rare and excit­ing wines lined up for tast­ing at the 2012 Fran­k­land Estate Inter­na­tional Ries­ling Tast­ing to be held on Feb­ru­ary 6^th and 7^th at Doltone House in Sydney.

The wine shows the incred­i­ble age­ing poten­tial of this noble and fas­ci­nat­ing grape vari­ety, and is part of the ‘Ries­ling through the Ages’ tast­ing show­cas­ing inter­na­tional Ries­lings from every decade from the 1940’s.

Struc­tured tast­ing and events over the two day cel­e­bra­tion fea­ture some of the newest and most excit­ing pro­duc­ers hit­ting the global scene, from as far afield as the Fin­ger Lakes USA, Alsace and our newest emerg­ing regions in Australia.

For those pre­fer­ring a more infor­mal dis­cov­ery of the Ries­ling grape, a casual tast­ing will be held at 5.30pm on Feb­ru­ary 6^th, where over 40 pro­duc­ers will be on-hand to chat infor­mally and pour their finest Ries­lings, includ­ing twelve who will be fly­ing in spe­cially from Ger­many, Alsace and the USA to par­tic­i­pate in this event.

Fran­k­land Estate’s Gen­eral Man­ager and wine­maker Hunter Smith said that he was over­whelmed with the gen­eros­ity from pro­duc­ers. “ Inter­na­tional Ries­ling mak­ers have dug deep into their museum stocks to sup­port these tast­ings, and we are thrilled that so many will be com­ing to Aus­tralia for this two day celebration.”

“We are also delighted to have Jan­cis Robin­son MW and Stu­art Pig­ott from Berlin with us to facil­i­tate our panel dis­cus­sions. They will add tremen­dous insights and value to par­tic­i­pants,” he said.

The Ries­ling cel­e­bra­tion will cul­mi­nate in a Grand Ries­ling din­ner being held at Glass Restau­rant, where chef Luke Man­gan will be prepar­ing a sig­na­ture five course degus­ta­tion menu matched to some of the finest of the world’s Rieslings.

The event is part of an inter­na­tional ‘Ries­ling Coali­tion’ pio­neered by Fran­k­land Estate, which sees sim­i­lar major Ries­ling cel­e­bra­tions hosted annu­ally in dif­fer­ent parts of the world.

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion and book­ings go to www.feirt.com.au

 Fran­k­land Estate and Cel­lar­Hand Wine Dis­tri­b­u­tion are delighted to announce Bengt Baum­gart­ner from the Euro­pean Group in Mel­bourne as the win­ner of the 2011 Ries­ling Scholarship. 

Regarded as one of the most excit­ing edu­ca­tional and tast­ing pro­grammes for the Aus­tralian wine trade, this highly cov­eted schol­ar­ship will send Baum­gart­ner on a trip to Europe to visit the vine­yards and winer­ies of some of the major Ries­ling pro­duc­ers of France, Ger­many and Aus­tria. Val­ued at $10,000, the trip pro­vides an oppor­tu­nity to fully explore this noble vari­ety, in all its diver­sity of style and regional nuances.

Baum­gart­ner was selected out of a final field of 12 can­di­dates, who gath­ered in Mel­bourne last week for a “Day of Ries­ling” – a day of tast­ings and mas­ter classes, cul­mi­nat­ing with a cel­e­bra­tory din­ner at Fenix restau­rant where he was announced as winner.

The 12 final­ists were assessed on their involve­ment through­out the day, tast­ing acu­men as well as their pre­sen­ta­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills. In announc­ing Baum­gart­ner as the win­ner, Fran­k­land Estate’s Hunter Smith said, “It was a real priv­i­lege to work with such a pro­fes­sional and pas­sion­ate group, so choos­ing a win­ner was no easy task. How­ever, we felt that Baum­gart­ner dis­played great palate sen­si­tiv­ity for the vari­ety and his pro­found knowl­edge and enthu­si­asm will make him a per­fect Ries­ling Ambas­sador in the future.” 

Baum­gart­ner is the head som­me­lier for the Euro­pean, City Wine Shop, Mel­bourne Sup­per Club and Siglo Bar.  He stud­ied for the rig­or­ous Swiss Hotel Man­age­ment Diploma in Ade­laide, before going on to gain much of his wine expe­ri­ence at the iconic Mel­bourne Wine Room.  In 2009, he was awarded dux of Vic­to­ria and sec­ond nation­ally in the Court of Mas­ter Som­me­liers Cer­ti­fied examination.

“I am so excited and grate­ful to be given this oppor­tu­nity to get immersed in Ries­ling in its Euro­pean home­land,” he said. “I have already got so much out of the expe­ri­ence of this schol­ar­ship and the trip to Europe will enable me to gain an even deeper under­stand­ing of this won­der­ful variety”. 

The ‘Fran­k­land Estate & Cel­lar­Hand Ries­ling Schol­ar­ship’ was ini­ti­ated in 1998 with the objec­tive of encour­ag­ing greater inter­est and appre­ci­a­tion of Ries­ling wines. Fran­k­land Estate has been at the fore­front of Ries­ling advo­cacy in Aus­tralia for over 20 years, and has been instru­men­tal in form­ing a Ries­ling Coali­tion with other key Ries­ling pro­duc­ers and organ­i­sa­tions around the world.

The win­ery will be host­ing the bi-annual Fran­k­land Estate Inter­na­tional Ries­ling Tast­ing on Feb­ru­ary 6^th & 7^th in Syd­ney, with spe­cial guests Jan­cis Robin­son and Stu­art Pig­gott. More infor­ma­tion on this event can be found at www.franklandestate.com.au

For fur­ther information:

Hunter Smith                                                                                      Patrick Walsh

Fran­k­land Estate                                                                               Cel­lar­Hand Wine Distribution

61 8 9855 1544                                                                                   61 3 9274 8444

hunter@franklandestate.com.au                                                patrick@cellarhand.com.au

The Fran­k­land Estate Inter­na­tional Ries­ling Tast­ing, a cel­e­bra­tion of the qual­ity and diver­sity of ries­ling wines, will be held in Syd­ney on 6^th and 7^th Feb­ru­ary 2012.

 The Fran­k­land Estate Team are delighted to announce that Jan­cis Robin­son and Stu­art Pig­ott will be lead­ing the com­men­tary team.

 Jan­cis Robin­son, OBE and the first Mas­ter of Wine from out­side the wine trade, is one of the world’s most respected wine writ­ers. She writes daily for www.JancisRobinson.com, weekly for the Finan­cial Times and bimonthly for pub­li­ca­tions around the world, includ­ing Gourmet Trav­eller Wine. A new media pio­neer, she is also respon­si­ble for two of the world’s most respected wine ref­er­ence books, The Oxford Com­pan­ion to Wine and, with Hugh John­son, The World Atlas of Wine. She is a life­long Ries­ling fan.

Stu­art Pig­ott has played an inte­gral part in the Fran­k­land Estate’s Inter­na­tional Ries­ling Tast­ing in the past.  His inno­v­a­tive and refresh­ing approach to the world of wine has won him respect in Aus­tralian wine cir­cles. Stu­art is co-founder of the new webiste www.weinhier.de

The tast­ing to be held in Syd­ney in Feb­ru­ary 2012 will fea­ture ries­lings from around the globe with a com­par­a­tive tast­ing of dry ries­lings and a com­par­a­tive tast­ing of ries­lings not so dry.

 The high­light of the 2 day event will be a study of the his­tory of ries­ling with some fine exam­ples of this noble grape through the ages.

Fran­k­land Estate has been a proud sup­porter of the Black Swan The­atre com­pany since 2007. We know the tri­als and tribu­la­tions of suc­cess­fully show­cas­ing one’s art and for this rea­son we are proud to assist West­ern Australia’s young per­form­ing artists.