Pewsey Vale 10 Year Museum Reserve The Contours Riesling
Wine Description
Pewsey Vale Vineyard The Contours is characterised by a special site, sensitive vine growing and astute winemaking. The Contours Riesling is produced from old vines grown on the coolest slope within this ruggedly beautiful single vineyard. After 10 years in the bottle the 2007 Pewsey Vale Contours Riesling is showing all the poise and intensity that you would expect in a great bottle aged Riesling.
Acclaim
Vineyard & Production Info
Winemaking & Aging
Analytical Data
Wine Production
Sealing a bottle under a screw cap removes the variability and taints associated with cork. A screw cap also ensures that the wine in the bottle will age under the best possible conditions. The perfect seal of the screw cap ensures that no air or oxygen can enter the bottle. In these reductive conditions the wine undergoes "pure bottle aging" where the fresh citrus flavors remain, and are overlaid with flavors of toast, lemon grass and eventually some honey and possibly marmalade. Since there is no oxygen getting in to the bottle, there is no oxidising or "drying out" of the wine. This means that the colour, while it will deepen into the gold spectrum, retains its freshness and green hues and does not go brown, and that the flavors and palate do not "dry out",but stay fresh with any sweet fruit characters that were initially in the wine remaining.
About the Vineyard
Rainfall in Eden Valley during the growing season was less than forty percent of average, this combined with low crop set and slightly higher than average temperatures, caused the grapes to ripen nearly a month earlier than normal. Despite these trials, the quality of the fruit was excellent, and the resultant wines full of limes and citrus flavours with lovely long mineral acidity.