Invitational Frankland River Riesling 2022
FINGER LIME • MEYER LEMON • WET SLATE
Sourced from one of the great sites in Frankland, Swinney Vineyard, we are ecstatic to work with this exceptional fruit from old vines planted on deep ironstone clay and gravels. Meticulously farmed, harvested at night, the floral lift and fine acidity characteristic of the Frankland region was beautifully captured in this wine. Light hay, sparkling green edges; aromas of lime, jasmine, honeysuckle, green pineapple; palate of finger lime, Meyer lemon meringue, juicy, ethereal, rain on wet slate finish. 750ml.
Accolades
95 points, The Real Review
Light yellow colour; already accessible and more open than the Magpie Hill Reserve or Chatsfield wines. Lime and fresh-picked herbs, a marginally richer, fuller palate that is already very rewarding to drink.
94 points, Halliday Wine Companion
A pure, potent and charismatic riesling of intensity and drive. Loaded with briny minerality and wound tightly with green apple and grapefruit zestiness. Opens with fruit characters married to wet fern, ozone and sea spray notes, the palate likewise apple-meets-grapefruit with flinty mineral elements. Flavours extend long and tightly packed with great concentration of fruit, spice and mineral elements. Overall, feels high quality while positing high drinkability. A winner.
93 points, The Wine Front
93 points, Wine Pilot
This is sourced from Frankland River and comes from the excellent Powderbark vineyard of Matt Swinney. It has a distinctive minerally slaty character. It’s also got power and intensity with a great palate weight and texture, and is quite spicy. Provides an alternative to the more austere and finer Porongurup wines from the home vineyard.
91+ points, Parker Wine Advocate
The 2022 Riesling Frankland River is a new wine in the Duke's portfolio, and it marks the beginning of a new chapter for the estate, after Duke and Hilde Ranson sold the eponymous property late in 2021. Imbued with the searing acidity that comes so naturally to Frankland River, this is tight, taut and laser focused. 2022 was a great vintage in Western Australia, and the power and effortless drive that so many of the wines display is on show here. If anything, a little more fruit weight would help balance the natural acidity here and give the wine a little more flesh through the mid-palate and finish. It's lovely, though it needs some time.
Halliday Top 5 Star Winery
Halliday defines top five-stars as "Outstanding winery regularly producing wines of exemplary quality and typicity"
Appearance: pale hay, green gold edges
Aroma: lemon sorbet, lime skin, lifted white flower, flint, almond milk, mineral, bright
Palate: bright racy lemony mineral; excellent tension and precision; green apple skin, weight with lightness, some juicy lemon pith width; good weight, but lightly dances across palate
Cool wet winter with a very high rainfall followed by a warm to hot and dry summer. The vines grew quickly developing excellent canopies. Delayed bud burst which affected flowering and gave lower yields. Good tannin ripeness (physiological ripeness) with deep colours in red grapes. Whites and rosé had very complex aromatics and flavours with bright acidities. This was a cool vintage which allowed slow development of complex characters and beautiful acidities within the grapes.
For the first time ever, we have added a range of wines to our Duke's Vineyard portfolio that are made from premium fruit sourced from other vineyards in Southwest Australia. Part of this decision was made because we want to create a conversation around the other great expressions of Riesling that come from this part of the world. The Swinney Vineyard has long been associated with top quality Riesling so when they offered us four tonnes from the top Powderbark Vineyard (planted in 1999) at the last minute during harvest, we jumped at the opportunity. We tasted it, picked it, and sorted it all in a 12-hour period.
Machine harvested at night with a Pellenc (which sorts the fruit onboard), it was in the press by 6am, cold as can be. A Champagne style press cycle was used with minimal rotations to minimise colour and phenolic/tannin pick up. Cool fermented at 15C in stainless steel with selected yeast (QA23) for aromatic whites for three weeks, aged on lees (grape and yeast solids) for two months and bottled in June.
Frankland is warmer than the Porongurups with colder nights which results in the fruit retaining great acidity and freshness. The soils are red clay with volcanic rock and have good drainage, giving more weight to the wine.
- Vintage 2022
- Alcohol 11.2%
- Vineyard Swinney Vineyard, Frankland River
- Varietal Riesling
- Bottling date June 2022
- Region Great Southern, Western Australia
- Sub-region Frankland River
- Residual sugar 0.07 g/l
- pH 2.84
- Acidity 7.5 g/l