Pewsey Vale Riesling Vertical 2004-14 13 January 2016

[Waiters Friend]

G'day

A bunch of us descended on the Terrace Hotel in Perth, for a tasting of 11 consecutive vintages of Pewsey Vale Riesling, from 2014 back to 2004.

Pewsey Vale was my introduction to Australian Riesling, and for nearly 20 years now, I have been buying a dozen (or more), drinking a couple young, and then tasting approximately annually from then on. This means, at any given time, there’s about 10-12 years of PV in the cellar, in decreasing quantities. I suppose that’s what cellaring is for.

Pewsey Vale switched to screwcap for the 2003 vintage. Prior to that, I found oxidation through the cork meant that reliably cellaring these wines was a gamble. Yalumba, including Pewsey Vale, heavily trialled the screwcap in the 1970s / early 1980s, and I wish they had made the full conversion earlier. One of the best Australian Rieslings I have ever tried was the 1979 PV (under screwcap) drunk in 2000. All of the wines in this tasting were under screwcap.

We tasted from youngest to oldest. One of the purposes of vertical tastings is to discover if there is a common thread running through the line, or whether vintage variation overshadows this. I can reliably record that the common threads through all the wines are:

• Colour. There is a gradual transition from pale yellow in the youngest wines to a yellow with faint gold / green tinges in the older wines. I would emphasise, however, that the transition over 11 years is modest, and even the oldest wines looked clear and relatively youthful.

• Acidity. There are only minor differences between the wines in terms of the level of apparent acidity – this provides part of the wines’ structure and is reasonable consistent through the line-up.

• Lemon or lime? There’s usually a combination of the two in these wines, but the tasting notes will generally record a predominance of one over the other.

So, onto the wines:

Pewsey Vale Riesling 2014: Nose shows a combination of lemon and lime, with some musk and sherbet. Some tasters described tinges of apricot, under-ripe stonefruit, talc and floral blossoms. The palate showed some minerality and chalkiness after initial spritz (or is that just the acidity?) with lime cordial supporting. This wine appeared ‘softer’ than the next two, but I suspect this will look similar to those in a year’s time.

Pewsey Vale Riesling 2013: The nose opens with a modest whiff of kero that slightly overshadows the lime fruit. This wine shows more lime than lemon, however, with some lemon blossom, and what one taster referred to as ‘pudding stones’ or pebbles. The palate showed similar acidity and minerality to the previous wine, however, finished quite short and the fruit was muted. We suspect this has entered the famous ‘dumb phase’ that some Rieslings go through for a couple of years.

Pewsey Vale Riesling 2012: Very similar to the 2013, with the slight kero and lime dominating lemon. Greater fruit weight on the palate, however. Still in the dumb phase, but could be a very good PV when it grows up.

Pewsey Vale Riesling 2011: The kero has mostly disappeared on this one, and the lemon is more pronounced than lime. There’s a hint of sulphur, along with orange peel, raisin, and honeydew melon. This has greater fruit purity and better balance than the previous wines, and was viewed as more elegant. It’s interesting to note this was picked about a month later than the previous vintages.

Pewsey Vale Riesling 2010: Faint kero, lots of lemon and lemon blossom, a touch of honey and talc. The palate was richer / more intense than many of the previous wines,with good length. The wine has clearly emerged from the dumb phase.

Pewsey Vale Riesling 2009: This wine showed lemon / lime cordial, with kero and slightly higher glycerols than the previous wines. It’s fuller, and the palate has honeyed sweetness. The acid seemed unusually prominent, and we wondered about acid additions. It’s a little simpler and one dimensional than all of the previous wines. This wine was also a later harvest (March into April, rather than February into mid-March).

Pewsey Vale Riesling 2008: Like the 2010, this shows predominantly lemon. There’s also some sherbet and musk and lemon curd. The musk follows into the palate, which was a beauty – rich and full of lemon meringue pie. This was possibly the best balanced of the wines to date, and was also refreshing and palate cleansing.

Pewsey Vale Riesling 2007: This is similar to the 2008, but slightly less balanced. There’s a clean lemon lime nose, with talc, lanolin (we are getting some aged characters in these wines), lemon blossom and honeydew. There’s a curious tension on the palate between fruit purity and palate weight, with the acid supporting the front palate only – a slightly short finish (but we’re being picky!)

Pewsey Vale Riesling 2006: Lots of lemon, lemon zest. Still minerality and chalkiness present over the florals and lemon blossom. The palate is lemon barley cordial and finishes ever so slightly short in comparison to the surrounding wines, despite greater palate weight up front. This was also a later harvest. The wine is still tight at 10 years old and probably has at least another 5 years on it.

Pewsey Vale Riesling 2005: We’re only just getting the faint hints of gold in the colour here – not bad for an 11 year old white. More lime than lemon this time, and cordial-like and musky. The palate has an intriguing combination of fruit freshness, acid and slight development. Good length and great balance. Still young, and will probably go longer than the 2006. This was also a later harvest.

Pewsey Vale Riesling 2004: Very similar to the 2005, and also a later harvest. Again, more lime than lemon, slightly honeyed and with lanolin and toast. There’s fruit richness on the palate with supporting acidity, and one taster described the palate as ‘glistening’. Again, this wine will go a little longer.

Wine of the night was the 2005, by a large majority.

So, what did we learn from the tasting? These wines under screwcap are likely to go for 15 years or more – certainly even the oldest wines tonight were showing vibrancy and freshness. They definitely go through a dumb phase for a couple of years early in their careers, and I think I will need to adjust my tasting schedule to give those years a miss. Having said that, I have been operating on a 10 year lifespan (dating back to the cork days) and under screwcap, I can safely add a few more. That means I will need to but more each year to cater for the expanded lifespan.

The other good news is that my stocks are such that I could repeat this tasting again tomorrow, so my intentions are to do it again in, say, three years, with vintages 2015-2018 added to the mix. Stay tuned …….

Thanks to those people who were present for their candid comments and general camaraderie.

Cheers
Allan -

[Michael McNally]

Iconic Label - nice pics!

[Mahmoud Ali]

Thanks for the notes, pictures, and observations. By the way, the 2014 Pewsey Vale Riesling is Jancis Robinson's 'Wine of the Week'.

Mahmoud.

[Rory]

Hi Ian, still have some of the '99 PV Contours in thr cellar under screw cap. Drinking stunning.

[Benchmark]

The below would be awesome, a 76 Pewsey Vale under screw cap.

https://www.langtons.com.au/product-det ... e/riesling

Spamming on just about every thread.

Poor form.