2010 Sydney Royal Wine Show Tasting Part 1 - Riesling and Semillon

Saturday 13 February saw the annual Sydney Royal Wine Show held at the Sydney Showgrounds in Homebush. As usual it was an overwhelming tasting, with in excess of 2000 bottles open in the one room. This is the first of 4 posts we will make summarising some of the wines Red and I tasted over the course of the day. Notes are a mix between the both of us (consensus and democracy at work) and were hastily jotted down on the iPhone, so more a snapshot than a considered tasting.

These Rieslings and Semillons were a pleasure to taste. Most still had many years left to develop further in the cellar, though are delicious now. RedtoBrown has banged on about how good Riesling is (not alone in that view, thankfully), though you can also add NSW (and some Barossa) Semillon to the list of great value whites.

Riesling
2004 Pewseyvale Contours a bit of developing kerosene on the nose, obvious lime/lemon profile, some weight on palate, intense, ok length, typical Eden flintyness, years left.

2005 Leo Buring  Leonay Eden Valley - lightly golden yellow, colour, less obvious horsepower/ weight on
palate, finer style to the Pewseyvale. Nice length with spice on middle and back palate.
2005 Peter Lehmann Wigan - sweeter on nose and palate, light and fine. Finishes powerfully strong, good length.
2004 Crawford River Henty  - unique/atypical nose, honey, oily wax, spice, nice acidity. Interesting departure point from the SA Rieslings. Deserved Gold.

Semillons
2004 Thomas Wines Braemore Semillon -  colour bright and clear. honey, toast, butter, but crisp lemon acidity in mouth - still has years ahead.
1999 Tyrrell's HVD - Suprisingly light yellow given age, sawdust-like woody smells, lovely lemon citric sourness on finish. Still years ahead of it.
1999 Tyrrell's Vat 1 - Toasty, nice light golden yellow colour, length good, not as intense as HVD,
savoury with great level of natural acid.
2003 Mount Pleasant Lovedale - spice Ginger? Hazlenut? Aged golden yellow colour – random oxidisation?  There is a party going on in this bottle that needs to be shut down. Would like to try another bottle of this before making any judgement.

Summary: Our first tasting of the day, and most of the wines were superb. The fact all of these wines will cellar adds to their appeal.