EVERY GOOD RIESLING TO ENJOY THIS ONE

Wc30May11

David Ellis

DON’T give up on Riesling, its great with spicy Asian and Mexican dishes or with Beurre blanc Morton Bay Bugs.

RIESLING has dropped off the twig as a wine of preference for many these days, which truly is a shame because it can be a delightful choice with dishes ranging from spicy Asian and Mexican, to salty shellfish.

And if there’s a region that’s a great producer of Australian Rieslings, its South Australia’s Clare Valley whose rich soils, warm days and cool nights are a perfect start for some of our most intensely-flavoured of these wines.

Leasingham have long produced Rieslings of outstanding flavour from the Clare, their Bin range achieving something of icon status. The recently-released 2010 Bin 7 shows just why the Clare and its sub-region of Watervale have earned a reputation as one of our premium regions for the varietal.

This is a wine that’s got loads of Riesling lemon and lime characters, great minerality and a touch of spice. At $23 you’ll find it a good match with spicy Asian and Mexican foods, yet at the same time it can be just as delightful with shellfish such as Morton Bay Bugs in a lemon and lime Beurre blanc.

A CLARE Valley mainstay: enjoy now or cellar for ten years to develop its full potential.

ONE FOR LUNCH: ANOTHER Clare Valley maker, Tim Adams and wife Pam Goldsack have been making wines in the Valley under their own label for a quarter century, and while producing a range of wonderful varietals and blends it is their Tim Adams Shiraz that’s one of their great mainstays.

They’ve just released the 2008 that’s made from fruit from a number of mainly dryland vineyards – vineyards that are used to hard conditions, and certainly experienced how tough times can be, with the 2008 vintage culminating in temperatures up to 38-degrees (just under 100F.)

This is an elegant dry wine with lovely red-berry flavours and subtle oak. Pay $28.50 and enjoy with Steak au Poivre – or Asian-basted BBQ pork spareribs. Or keep it in the cellar to develop to its full potential over the next decade…

(NEED A FOOD/DRINK IDEA? Check out  http://www.vintnews.com )