2022 The Story Whitlands Riesling

Cool climate Riesling with a kiss of sweetness.

Price:
Sale price$32.00
Stock:
Sold out
Rendering loop-subscriptions

Description

This is a lovely cool-climate Riesling from Rory Lane. He's been making it now for a number of years and has his approach to this fruit pretty well dialed in.

It's barrel fermented in a large foudre than finished with a smidgen of residual sugar, both the hint of sugar and the oak lending a little more texture and weight to the fragile, high-tensile fruit that this Whitlands vineyard produces.

A delightful wine kept perfectly in balance and a great place to start if looking to slightly sweeter/more textural styles of Australian Riesling.

94 points
"This is a gorgeous style of wine. It offers lemon, kaffir lime and chalk notes with the most delicious burst of flavour-carrying acidity through the finish."
- Campbell Mattinson (Halliday Wine Companion)

94 points - "Fermented wild in foudre and stopped at 7 g/L RS. It sits pale in the glass, smells delicate on the nose, and is then intense on the palate, but soft. This is a gorgeous style of wine. It offers lemon, kaffir lime and chalk notes with the most delicious burst of flavour-carrying acidity through the finish." - Campbell Mattinson (Halliday Wine Companion)

Our seventh release from Whitlands, and the third cool vintage in a row. The Croucher Vineyard is set at close spacing on red volcanic soils, up at around 800m above sea level, and was planted in the mid-1980s. It is proper cool-climate viticulture - something I think Riesling really needs to give full expression. 2022 was a cool, wet and long vintage, very similar in that respect to 2021, but timing the pick around the rain events and the reliable spectre of botrytis was more challenging this year. Harvest was 8th April, which was not that late in retrospect, but another significant rain event forced our hand and we went a little earlier than we would have liked to avoid rot. High acidities and delicate flavours made 100% foudre fermentation the most sensible choice, to add softness and give to a wine that would otherwise be a little ‘strict’. 8g/lt residual sugar was also left to further counterweight the acidity. The resultant wine is very pale, with delicate lemon and Granny Smith apple flavours, characteristic persistent phenolics but s nicely soft and gentle palate. I think it will take a little longer to blossom than some vintages, but time should be kind.

Price Bracket $31 to $40
Type White
Sub Type Riesling | Off-Dry
Body Light Bodied
Variety Riesling
Country Australia
Region Grampians
Australian State VIC
Reviewed By Halliday Wine Companion
Critic Score 94
Size 750ml
Vintage 2022
Closure Screw Cap

The Story

Rory Lane, the main man at The Story, didn't have an entirely conventional path to the wine world. With a degree in ancient Greek tragedy, comparative literature, and politics, he stumbled into winemaking and found he had more than a knack for it.

Since 2004, he's been tinkering with predominantly Rhône varieties in the Grampians, turning out some unique expressions from this Shiraz-heavy region. His winery is located in the city suburbs of Melbourne, not your typical winery setting, but it suits him down to a tee.

Rory's winemaking philosophy is to keep it relatively simple and hands-off. Grapes arrive, get gently processed, and then are left to their own devices with minimal interference. No additives, no excessive tinkering. Just good, solid, classic winemaking producing some exceptional value wines.

Winemaker Rory Lane The Story

Others also liked

Recently viewed

Shipping

Delivery is free on orders of $150 or more!

For orders under this amount, delivery is calculated at checkout based on your postcode. You can order in any quantity or combination of wines you like. Straight dozens are not required.

We will dispatch your order the same or next business day.

Estimated delivery transit time varies depending on your location. Please review this page for specific estimates.

Sydney (Our Vans): If no one is home and there are no special delivery instructions our driver will try to call for instructions. If the driver believes there is a safe space to leave your wine they will do so if not, they will return the item to us and hold your order until further instruction from you. 

Melbourne (Anonymous Wine Freight): If no one is home and there are no special delivery instructions, the courier will try to call for instructions. If the driver believes there is a safe space to leave your wine they will do so. if not, they will return the item to their dispatch centre and hold until further instruction from you.

Australia Post: Australia Post will leave the parcel if they have been given authority to leave and it is deemed safe to do so. To give your Authority to Leave, please enter this in the 'SPECIAL REQUEST' box at checkout.

Ordering

We want Different Drop customers to always be getting the best price. If you see a lower price elsewhere, just get in touch and we will sort it out for you. We handle all our price-matching on a case by case basis.

Some things to keep in mind: 

  • Retrospective price-matching is available for 30 days after you have purchased from us.
  • The price match cannot be used in conjunction with a coupon or one-off deal we are offering. The idea is for you to get the best price in the market so if that is already achieved through a coupon then we won't price match on top of that.
  • We don't price match clearance or fire sales.
  • We’ll match the listed price as long as it is a legitimate offer and the competing store is actually able to fulfil the order (they have stock or more stock is en route). Essentially we won't price match cheeky vendors listing wines they have no hope of actually getting for you...
  • It must be a publicly listed price. We won't match a price that has been achieved through a coupon/cash-back arrangement, or through a non-advertised offer over the phone or otherwise.  
  • It is limited to a reasonable retail quantity.

We'll treat each price match request on its merit and reserve the right to refuse where we deem fit. For example, particularly rare wines, from non-trust-worthy vendors, in circumstances we deem illegitimate or if we feel our policy is being unfairly taken advantage of.

At the end of the day, we'll look after you and use common sense to ensure you're getting the best price, please just don't take the p%$$!

No, feel free to mix it up! There is no minimum requirement. You can order wines in any quantity or combination, 1 or 50+ bottles.

We stock three different sized gift boxes (single, three bottle and six), all are available for purchase for a flat rate of $8. They look great and make an awesome impression.

To add a gift box to your order, simply add at checkout. The special requests box is your friend, please give us as many details of what you are looking for and we will try our best, or get in contact to discuss it with you. 

If you want to bulk order gifts or if you have any trouble please email hello@differentdrop.com or call and we can try and help.

 

If you can't add more wine to your cart it means we are low on stock of that wine. For example, if you are only able to 3 bottles and no more that means we only have 3 bottles left of that wine. If it's a must have, please contact us and we may be able to order more in for you.

Call Us

Send a message