2023 Riesling Lab

Celebrating the spirit of experimentation each year, our Riesling Lab has emerged as a fun opportunity for our cellar crew to geek out over our beloved variety. 

Light amber in colour, this Riesling opens with big aromas of lemon oil, lime, mango, and a light fuzzy peach note. Hints of apricot blossom and McIntosh apple also make appearances. On the palate, we’re tasting candied orange peel, pineapple and chamomile with intriguing background notes of fresh hay and grilled lemon. A touch of pastry with cream also lingers in the background, indicative of its neutral barrel fermentation.

WINEMAKER'S NOTES:

This year’s iteration of Lab Riesling saw many experiments. The juice is comprised of all the “hard pressings” of our Riesling picks, where we press a touch further into the skins and pomace to extract a more textural juice. After pressing, the bulk of the juice was fermented wild in old Chardonnay barrels.

A quarter of this juice was separated out and “blackened”; a process of hyper-oxidization of the juice to drive out any phenolics (also fermented wild). Other experiments were more on the micro scale, including portions of the juice being fermented in small carboys with different aromatic yeasts to observe expressions, a trial to discover what acidulation would do to the freshness of the juice, and the use of different yeast cultures on the very micro scale.

Once all brought together, these small explorations offer the wine so many layers of expression. The wine was balanced with an unctuous sweetness of 16g made more prevalent by the higher pH and lower acidity of hard press juice.

TECHNICAL INFO

Varietal: 100% Riesling
Alcohol: 12.0%
Residual Sweetness: 16.8 g/L
pH: 3.44
Total Acidity: 7.3 g/L

• VINTAGE NOTES

  2023 was a rollercoaster of a growing season. Following an extreme cold snap in late December 2022, the vines were slow to emerge. Bud break occurred in early May. From there it was a race against the vintage as the vines grew incredibly fast. Low rainfall and high temperatures were the hallmark of the start of the season.
  

  The main part of the growing season and the ripening period were also very warm with little rainfall but high humidity. As a result of the winter damage, the crop was small and intensely flavoured which resulted in earlier than average picking dates for most varieties. The additional challenge of wildfires in our region at the end of August meant that nuanced winemaking
  choices were key for this vintage.