Central Otago
Is one of the regions in the world which has a climate well suited to the variety. We have long hot days and cool evenings, we have mostly glacial and alluvial soils at a range of elevations creating the terraces Riesling thrives on.
Amisfield Wine Company
At Amisfield we make two Rieslings, they are both planted in a small valley protected from the desiccating northwesterly winds. This combined with Lochar gravel soils gives our Rieslings great minerality and length to accompany intense stone fruit and citrus characters.
To read more about the Amsifeild Riesling see; http://www.amisfield.co.nz/wines/varieties/riesling
The Riesling at Amisfield is planted in 2 blocks, the older vines of the Rocky Knoll area and younger vines on a beautiful elevated terrace above the winery. The sites are low vigour and our Riesling yields small berried fruit with excellent concentration and uniformity. Great emphasis is placed on canopy management so that we have good consistency with our Riesling year to year. Below is a picture of what our 2012 Riesling currently looks like and also a view from our block 1 Riesling.
The Riesling passion/bug does not just finish in the vineyard and winery with Vaughan (Executive Chef) and his team at the Amisfield Bistro creating dishes to match with the aromatic Rieslings.
Currently on the menu the kitchen has a couple of dishes that sychronise perfectly with the Dry Riesling. Below on the left is the Apples, orange, hazelnuts, marjoram juice with wild greens and manuka dressing. On the right we have salt crusted beets, foraged cress, aubergine and fresh cheese.
We can't forget the infamous Amisfield pork belly which arguably matches better with the Lowburn Terrace Riesling than the Pinot noir?? We will have to test that theory out a few more times...
Watch this space as events unfold at Amisfield and around Central Otago as the Summer of Riesling continues.
0 comments:
Post a Comment