Mount Horrocks Watervale Clare Valley Riesling 2025
£20.75
The wine
Youthful lime green that will develop in time. The nose displays delicate spring florals and lime leaf. On the palate, crunchy green apple and crisp, vibrant and distinctive lemon-lime citrus flavours create a juicy and tangy mouthfeel. This wine is beautifully light and elegant yet is capable of at least a few years' cellaring, if not more than a decade.
Clare Valley Riesling is one of the few wines in the world that reliably rewards a decade in bottle at this price. Mount Horrocks match each variety to a specific site, and the Alexander vineyard at Watervale is given over to Riesling alone. Hand picked in the cool of the morning, gently crushed and destemmed with only free-run juice taken, fermented dry on neutral yeasts in stainless steel. No malolactic, deliberately, so the site and the variety speak without softening.
The producer
Mount Horrocks
View all Mount Horrocks winesMount Horrocks is a benchmark Clare Valley producer, led with great skill by Stephanie Toole. From the Watervale sub-region in South Australia, the estate has earned a devoted following for wines of purity, precision and character.
The vineyards are farmed organically and tended by hand, with fruit picked and sorted meticulously. This careful, sustainable approach and a focus on site expression give wines of clarity and freshness, none more so than the estate's celebrated Rieslings.
The range centres on pristine Watervale Riesling and a beautifully crafted Semillon, alongside characterful reds in Shiraz, Cabernet and Nero d'Avola. The famous Cordon Cut Riesling, made by severing the canes to concentrate the fruit on the vine, is a modern Australian classic.
Meticulous, expressive and consistently excellent, Mount Horrocks captures the Clare Valley at its finest. Its wines reward attention and age with grace.
