Frankland Estate 2014 Isolation Ridge Riesling, Frankland River WA $35
This has to be one of my all time favourite rieslings. Year in, year out, even taking into account variations in vintage, the crew at Frankland Estate manage to put together one of the best rieslings in the country. There are three in the range, all single vineyard wines but my preference is usually for the Isolation Ridge vineyard riesling.
Great riesling should be about purity. It's an amazing variety; unlike many others you can taste its distinctive characters in the vineyard well before the wine is made. It's the winemaker's job to just gently coerce the fruit through the ferment to the finished wine without ruining the flavours and aromas that the vineyard created.
This is exactly what the winemakers at Frankland Estate do. This latest vintage of their Isolation Ridge riesling is simply sublime. Potent lime and musk aromatics leap from the glass: this is a gorgeous, pretty riesling with amazing clarity and line. The palate is pure and crisp, dry to finish with more of the aforementioned lime and musk to follow. It's the perfect summer wine either on its own or with delicate dishes, one of those wines you could drink all day every day if given the chance.
Fergus McGhie is sales and marketing manager at Mount Majura Vineyard in Canberra.
