When the Swedish toast each other, they say Skal! How wonderfully close to the English “skull” used in most countries when people try to convince each other to drain their drink. I do wonder if maybe the swedish skal actually influenced our little chant…
Well, last night I sampled a still wine which I have tried on many occasions. Unfortunately it was warm and I don’t think it was showing very well. Here are my notes regardless
Muddy Water dry riesling 2007, Waipara, New Zealand
Belinda is a really fun winemaker, who is really onto it when it comes to the vineyard, the grapes are also tended to by the vineyard team, lead by Miranda (Muddy water is a bit of a ladies affair). The juice is mostly fermented in stainless steel – though some ferments will occur in oak. Once the juice has fermented – to dry (meaning very little sugar left in the wine) in the case of the dry riesling – it is transferred to oak barrels. The wine doesn’t pick up much from the barrels – the barrels used are quite old, and so don’t give much in aroma or flavour terms. However they do help to round out the wines palatte, and improve the texture of the wine.
I found that this wine had a smooth palatte, with a soft but dry finish and a bit of honey in the mouth. It was also slightly effervescent. It smelt like feijoa, honey and lemon. The colour was very light.
This wine is nearing three years old, so is quite fresh for it’s age (basically meaning, it doesn’t smell like oil at all yet, and the colour is still light, not dark straw/yellow or gold), but wasn’t nearly as fresh as it was the last time I tried it about 4 months ago. I think this is mainly because it was warm – not good at all, I think I need to have a word to my fiancee about leaving wine in hot cars!
The dry riesling usually costs about NZ$20.
I think that this wine is good value for money, and the 08 will be great value (I need to look for a bottle!)
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