Frankland Estate Newsletter 2012 Riesling Release, March 2013,

3 COMPELLING REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD TRY A THREESOME

Most of us have a sta­tus quo bias, a non-rational pref­er­ence for the famil­iar that makes us cau­tious about try­ing any­thing dif­fer­ent or new. Over­com­ing this bias requires a step-by-step approach in which small changes are made first before more ambi­tious chal­lenges are sub­se­quently attempted. Even those who believe vari­ety may indeed be the spice of life need to learn to walk before attempt­ing to run.

For­tu­nately there are few bet­ter ways to test your appetite for sen­sory plea­sure than through a glass of ries­ling. It offers a sim­ple, risk-free method of gaug­ing your response to the thrill and excite­ment of hav­ing your senses rav­ished by a third party. Even more for­tu­nate is that Fran­k­land Estate are again offer­ing riesling-tragics and those who aspire to be so-afflicted, the oppor­tu­nity to try not just one but three dis­tinctly dif­fer­ent ries­lings from the 2012 vintage.

Arguably there are few more attrac­tive three­somes than these sin­gle vine­yard ries­lings. All are hand-crafted by the same wine­mak­ing team at Fran­k­land Estate with fruit grown in three dif­fer­ent vine­yards within the Fran­k­land River region. In recent years each of these wine has gar­nered glow­ing reviews and 90+ scores from crit­ics (See Plau­dits from the Pun­dits here) enabling each to make a sep­a­rate claim to be ranked among Australia’s finest ries­lings. More impor­tantly -at least to our wine­mak­ing team- each wine has earned acclaim for speak­ing with a dis­tinc­tive and authen­tic voice about where they came from. In other words, like all fine ries­lings they have a soul and a dis­cernible sense of place.

Be that as it may, what makes this such an irre­sistibly seduc­tive threesome?

1. Splen­did Isolation

Min­er­al­ity in wine is a bit like pornog­ra­phy; hard to define but you know it when you come across it. The most seduc­tive attribute of fine ries­ling is that it is more min­eral than fruit. The min­eral infused flavours of the 2012 Iso­la­tion Ridge Vine­yard Ries­ling are, for instance, mas­ter­fully inter­wo­ven with tight but del­i­cately flavoured fruit notes. Both com­po­nents are in near-perfect bal­ance but the min­er­al­ity is the most dis­tinc­tive fea­ture. It has an ethe­real mys­te­ri­ous­ness to it. We know not how or what cre­ates the flavour pro­file var­i­ously described as ‘wet stones’, ‘river peb­bles’, or ‘crys­talline’ but that is part of its magic. Like good art it merely offers a sug­ges­tion and invites us to com­plete the pic­ture and become alert to the beauty of the unknow­able. Few oth­ers do this with the same alacrity as this wine made from organ­i­cally farmed fruit grown in the Iso­la­tion Ridge vine­yard at Fran­k­land Estate. It is the type of wine Terry Theise was per­haps refer­ring to when he sug­gested, “ries­ling is so dig­i­tally pre­cise, so finely artic­u­late, so pix­i­lated and pointil­list in detail that other wines seem mute by comparison.”

2. No anti­dote for this pre­co­cious poison

Of the three sin­gle vine­yard ries­lings made by Fran­k­land Estate the wines from the Poi­son Hill vine­yard are invari­ably the most pre­co­cious offer­ing greater gen­eros­ity of flavour at an ear­lier age than their more tightly-wound sta­ble mates. Despite our deci­sion to delay the release of all our 2012 ries­ling wines until early 2013 (a pat­tern we intend to repeat in future years in order to give our ries­ling wine the oppor­tu­nity to cast off any juve­nile awk­ward­ness before they are released) this trait is still evi­dent in the 2012 Poi­son Hill Ries­ling. It com­bines remark­ably (by nor­mal Aus­tralian stan­dards) low alco­hol (10.5%)  with deli­cious, lightly tex­tured flavours that linger long mak­ing this an ideal ‘veranda sip­per’ or com­ple­ment to light sum­mer foods. To most Aus­tralian palates raised on a diet of high alco­hol wines the 2012 Poi­son Hill Ries­ling is a rev­e­la­tion; it proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that reduc­tions in alco­hol need not nec­es­sar­ily result in less intense flavours. Indeed, if noth­ing else, this ries­ling is proof lower alco­hol lev­els can result in more sat­is­fy­ing, more drink­able wines. As such this wine deserves a place in any ries­ling three­some not just for its pre­co­cious charm but also for demostrat­ing that the nexus between alco­hol and flavour is, at best, tenuous.

3. The BDSM mis­tress of Net­ley Road

If the Poi­son Hill Vine­yard Ries­ling is the pre­co­cious and some­what flir­ta­tious mem­ber of our sin­gle vine­yard ries­ling three­some, then the Net­ley Road Vine­yard wines are arguably akin to a sul­try, ele­gantly dressed BDSM mis­tress. As James Hal­l­i­day observed in his 96 point review of the 2011 wine (See Plau­dits from the Pun­dits here) noth­ing quite pre­pares you for the power and inten­sity of the waves of flavour and acid­ity this wine unleashes on the palate. The 2012 vin­tage is in the same mould. It is long, lean and pow­er­fully struc­tured with an irre­sistible com­bi­na­tion of power and ele­gance. Made from fruit grown on 47 year old vines this wine is an out­stand­ing exam­ple of the com­plex­ity and inten­sity bestowed by old-vine fruit. It has a highly lin­ear struc­ture, rapier-like acid­ity and both the struc­ture and inten­sity of fruit flavour to reward fur­ther cel­lar­ing. Every three­some should have an aris­to­crat and the Fran­k­land Estate 2012 Net­ley Road Ries­ling is one of those wines nat­u­rally imbued with breed­ing, power and nobility.

The dark and ever-so-attractive horse

As in every fam­ily, there is a dark horse in the Fran­k­land Estate ries­ling fam­ily. This one has the same lin­eage but a dif­fer­ent name from the rest of the fam­ily. It has always prided itself on being ‘dif­fer­ent’ but, despite hav­ing a rep­u­ta­tion for only appear­ing when the going is good, it has been a reg­u­lar pres­ence in recent years.

Dark horse it may be but the SmithCul­lam Ries­ling, although only pro­duced when vin­tage con­di­tions are deemed ‘excep­tional’, has won plenty of acco­lades in recent years as is evi­dent here.

The just-released 2012 vin­tage is only the fourth release of this ‘off-dry’ ries­ling made from a block of 21 year-old Geisen­heim clone ries­ling vines in the Iso­la­tion Ridge vine­yard. Its imme­di­ate pre­de­ces­sor won wide­spread acclaim includ­ing a 97 point review from James Hal­l­i­day and we hope this new vin­tage will fur­ther per­suade Aus­tralian ries­ling enthu­si­asts to aban­don the irra­tional notion that wines with resid­ual sugar will nec­es­sar­ily taste ‘sweet’.

The 2012 SmithCul­lam Riels­ing has an exquis­ite bal­ance of com­plex fruit flavours, 9 grams of resid­ual sugar, and intense, bone-crunching acid­ity from the Geisen­heim fruit. The result is a wine of excep­tional del­i­cacy and bal­ance with more power and inten­sity than one would expect in an 11% alc/vol wine. As with pre­vi­ous vin­tages the 2012 SmithCul­lam is only avail­able in very lim­ited quantities.

An overnight suc­cess 20 years in the making

One of the most sat­is­fy­ing aspects of the response to our wines in recent years has been the grow­ing recog­ni­tion there is more to Fran­k­land Estate than just ries­ling. The grow­ing crit­i­cal acclaim our red wines have received is best illus­trated by the stun­ning reviews our 2010 Olmo’s Reward has received here and the 2010 Iso­la­tion Ridge Shi­raz here. Both wines are still avail­able and make a won­der­ful com­ple­ment to our new-release ries­ling wines in a mixed dozen that we will deliver freight-free to cap­i­tal cities any­where in main­land Aus­tralia. Down­load an order form here

Held in Feb­ru­ary at Doltone House in Syd­ney, the 2012 FEIRT was deemed a suc­cess by atten­dees, media, pro­duc­ers and the very crit­i­cal Fran­k­land Estate team.

A total of 255 ries­lings from more than 100 dif­fer­ent domes­tic and inter­na­tional pro­duc­ers were pre­sented for tast­ing dur­ing the course of the two day event. The tast­ings were facil­i­tated by an expert panel led by Jan­cis Robin­son, world-renowned wine com­men­ta­tor and Mas­ter of Wine and Berlin-based inter­na­tional ries­ling author­ity Stu­art Pigott.

There were some amaz­ing wines in the var­i­ous line-ups, many of which had even the wine pro­fes­sion­als in the audi­ence astonished.

The Fram­ing­ham Auslese 2010 from Marl­bor­ough was one such wine, which earned wine­maker Andrew Hed­ley a vig­or­ous round of applause. It was placed in a bracket of ven­er­ated Aus­trian and Ger­man wines, and outscored them all!

Another sur­prise was the out­stand­ing Chateau Grand Tra­verse Lot 49 from Michi­gan – this is a new region for ries­ling pro­duc­tion and was a first ‘taste’ for most of us in the room.

Debat­ably, the most aston­ish­ing wine of the whole two day event had to be the 1946 Kloster Eber­bach Rüdesheimer Berg Schloss­berg Kabi­nett from the Rhein­gau. Wine critic Tim White described this wine as hav­ing intrigu­ing smoked paprika char­ac­ters, oth­ers found savoury sorts of pra­line notes. Either way, it was a once in a life­time expe­ri­ence to taste a wine so old, and in such won­der­ful condition.

Media cov­er­age of the event was pos­i­tive and extensive.  Click links for arti­cles from James Hal­l­i­day 3 March 2012, 10 March 2012 and Aus­tralian Gourmet Trav­eller Wine.

The crew from Aus­tralian Wine TV also took some video footage, which can be viewed at the links below.

• Slide show of day one wines at 2012 FEIRT: click here
• Inter­view with Hunter Smith & Stu­art Pig­ott: click here
• Inter­view with Hunter Smith & Peter Bourne : click here

More than 350 Ries­ling lov­ing con­sumers attended the var­i­ous events and their feed­back has been tremen­dous pro­vid­ing great encour­age­ment for us to con­tinue this reward­ing event.

Prepa­ra­tions are already under­way for the next FEIRT to be held in Mel­bourne in 2015.

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.