About
Estate Riesling off Stargazer's oldest Tea Tree block, given twelve hours on skins and fermented wild in ceramic and concrete eggs. Green apple, yuzu and mandarin with a hint of fennel pollen. Sherbet acid on the finish with chalk and sea spray behind it.
Palisander is Sam Connew's own ground, up in Tea Tree at the top of the Coal River Valley. The riesling block went in during 2002. The soil is brown dermosol over Jurassic dolerite and high in calcium, which gives thick skins and disease resistance.
Connew decided to put those skins to work. The fruit is hand picked and destemmed, then left on skins for twelve hours before a wild ferment in ceramic and concrete eggs. The wine then sits ten months on lees. That is where the chalk and the saline grip come from, not from sugar. It finishes dry at 13 per cent.
Bryn Williams farms the site with winter sheep, free ranging chickens and beehives. Serve the wine cold. Oysters, grilled fish and anything out of the fryer suit that sherbet acid.
Producer note
Bryn Williams farms Palisander for Sam Connew, running sheep through the rows in winter and chickens year round, with more than a thousand native plants in the ground since 2020. Soil organic carbon has climbed from 3.5 to 4.3 per cent since 2016.
Structure
Grape
Pairs with
Picked on Stef's structure profile.
