Jeffrey Grosset is a happy man. For several years his beaming countenance has been the public and industry face of the screwcap revolution in Australian wine, and now he’s had enough. It’s back to being a winemaker again, regaining contact with his customers and feeling the excitement that flows from making some of the country’s finest table wine. With some first-class Clare Valley vineyards plus a recently updated winery at his disposal, he’s again thinking about what he’s putting in the bottle, rather than how it’s sealed. And, much to the surprise of many Grosset customers, he’s even picking up the phone before his receptionist can get to it. A taste of the new Grosset releases goes a long way to understanding why Grosset is this happy. From 2003 comes a classically proportioned and silky-smooth Piccadilly Chardonnay from the Adelaide Hills, plus a fine and perfumed 2004 Pinot Noir. The 2003 Gaia, his Clare Valley blend of cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc and merlot reflects the heat of the vintage, but in a masterfully controlled and balanced way. It’s big, ripe and powerful, but reveals brightness, elegance and depth. The 2005 blend of Clare Valley semillon and Adelaide Hills sauvignon blanc is reserved, dry and savoury; a real food wine. But it’s the rieslings that have really got me going. 2005 is obviously the best Clare riesling vintage since the brilliant, but unusually late and cool 2002 season that created wines of such unusual perfume and intensity. Most of the 2005 rieslings I have tasted to date share an openness and a brightness; a rare purity of fruit and a wonderful balance with natural acids. They are dangerously easy to drink now, but should cellar with great distinction. From Grosset’s new Springvale vineyard at an altitude of 460 metres in Watervale comes his 2005 Watervale Riesling. Its red loam soil overlies limestone and Mintaro slate, and Grosset’s fastidious approach to viticulture results in crops of exceptional evenness and intensity. To taste the 2005 release and realise that the vines responsible for it are only seven years old is a remarkable thing. They are planted close for riesling, at 2000 vines per hectare, and in 2005 produced a startling 7.5 grams per litre of natural acidity. While many Australian winemakers have become rather artful at adding acids to their wines, few would argue against the notion that the best acid is natural acid. Typically, the Watervale Riesling has been regarded as the early to medium-drinking alternative while waiting for its higher-profile stablemate, the Polish Hill, to mature. While the Polish Hill from 2005 is a wine of staggering beauty and potential, the 2005 Watervale wouldn’t play second fiddle in many other portfolios. Deeply scented with lime and lemon over nuances of tropical fruit and stonefruit, it explodes on the palate with pristine and tightly focused flavour. Tight and silky, with a chalky mineral backbone, its remarkably concentrated citrus, peach and mango flavours culminate in a lingering finish of vibrant fruit tightly wrapped in racy acids. It’s a classic Clare style and should improve in the bottle for at least a decade. Even if only for curiosity’s sake, you owe yourself a taste of the 2005 Polish Hill. Almost as open and generous as the 2002 stellar vintage, but with all the heady rose garden perfume, schisty and minerally tightness and the exceptional length that this remarkable vineyard can produce, this is a classic wine. If the Watervale Riesling’s pedigree is pure Clare Valley, the Polish Hill’s is perhaps more international. Aspects of the wine resemble the perfume and profile of modern German and Austrian riesling. True to expectation, it will take at least a decade to begin to reveal what it’s really about. Beneath its almost fluffy expression of pear, apple and white peach flavour lie nuances of chalky wet slate that reveal layer after layer of richness and flavour. Only a handful of all Australian rieslings ever made are as good as this. It only takes a glass of either of these two rieslings before you’ll feel as happy as their maker.
