2010 Patrick of Coonawarra Estate Botrytis Riesling 375ml Gift Box

Producer Notes

“Our 2010 Botrytis Riesling was a once-off opportunity resulting in a very small, delicious batch.

Botrytis is a fungus that is naturally in the vineyard and infects the berries. Riesling and Semillon are the two main Botrytis wine varieties, but it can be made out of any white variety. The fungus feeds off the water inside the berries as they’re ripening and growing.

This concentrates the flavour, so you’re getting huge amounts of sugar and some intense flavours in there as well. It adds a lovely orange marmalade character to the wine.

Our region is not known for Botrytis wines. Usually you need specific climate conditions to create it - a dry climate but with some humidity to create that disease pressure.

However 2010 was an interesting year because we had quite a dry year, with one big rainfall event halfway through the growing season which caused the Botrytis infection to grow on the berries. From there, the vines need to be dry afterwards, otherwise you can develop moulds that you don’t want in the fruit.

This particular year, we were lucky enough to have those specific conditions. It enabled us to grow this really concentrated style, which I fermented into a wonderful dessert wine. The grapes have huge amounts of sugar and I fermented about half of that sugar out to create a well-balanced wine. It has about 11% alcohol and is high in acid and high in sugar to balance that out. It’s a lovely dessert wine that also ages extremely well, if you can manage to not drink it.

There’s only about 500 bottles left from the batch that we made in 2010, and we’re right at the end of it. It’s probably one that we won’t make again - but it’s pretty special for those who have had it.”

Specifications

• Vintage: 2010
• Grape Variety: Riesling
• Region: Coonawarra / South Australia / Australia
• Alcohol: 11%