“Porongurup Riesling: Excellent flow, weight, flavour and length. Purity is arguably the key but aromatics and texture are also of real note here. Flavour, it sings on.”
CAMPBELL MATTINSON, WINE COMPANION
Castle Rock Estate Riesling
This is our flagship wine that captures the pure fruit expression of our unique site along the Porongurup Range. It is a blend of the 6 Riesling blocks planted on our site, each with their own unique flavour profiles that contribute to the wines’ overall layered complexity. The wine consists of 100% free run juice, creating elegance and finesse due to the minimal phenolic pick-up from the skins during pressing. It is fermented cool in stainless steel tanks with minimal winemaking influence to highlight the fruit definition and quality attained in the vineyard. A short maturation time before bottling ensures that the freshness of our Rieslings is captured in bottling for immediate enjoyment. This creates a Riesling with a clean acid structure, elegant palate and fresh flavours of citrus and florals. Fine and delicate as a young wine, yet will age gracefully for 20+ years.
Castle Rock Estate ‘A&W’ Riesling
Named in honour of Angelo and Wendy, the founders of Castle Rock Estate. We aim to showcase the best Riesling fruit from the vineyard. Often, this is our oldest block of Riesling, dating back to the first planting in 1983. Like the Porongurup Riesling, we only use free run juice for this wine, with the fruit being handpicked, then whole bunch pressed, resulting in even less phenolic extraction from the grape skins. This provides fine delicate juice of exceptional quality, with prominent acid structure, a supple mid-palate weight and lifted aromatics. Cool fermentation preserves the fruit expression, followed by extended lees contact during 5 months of maturation to build some texture to complement the pristine Riesling fruit. This is a wine that can be enjoyed young, but is made for long term cellaring.
The Castle Rock Estate ‘Diletti’ Riesling
This is a new addition to the winery’s Riesling stable. It’s an exciting extension to our Rieslings. This wine is about texture and complexity built around the tight Riesling structure yet still displaying its Riesling DNA; free-run juice filled to puncheon and barriques prior to ferment with a different amount of juice solids (cloudy juice) in each barrel. We then matured the wine on lees in Barrels for nine months prior to bottling.
“One of the most spectacular young Australian rieslings I have encountered. That length, that power.” James Halliday, The Australian newspaper, July 2022
We aim to produce Riesling with fruit purity, finesse and balance; wines that reflect this unique Australian region.
Rob Diletti
Castle Rock Estate ‘Skywalk’ Riesling
The Skywalk Riesling offers a great contrast in style to our flagship Riesling. Although made in the exact same way as our Porongurup Riesling, we have utilised the medium pressing portion of juice from each Riesling block. This portion comes from the juice closest to the skin and is characterised by lower acidity, more phenolic extraction and ultimately, more flavour. The resulting wine has a soft textual mouthfeel with fuller flavour, which is made for early drinking but can be cellared for the medium term.
Castle Rock Estate ‘RS21’ Riesling
We explore the historic relationship between Riesling acid structure and natural residual sugar with the RS21 Riesling. This wine is made from 100% free run, cool fermented to retain fruit expression and freshness and then arrested early to preserve some natural residual sugar in the wine. A residual sugar level of 21 g/L (RS21) was achieved, creating a ‘medium-dry’ style Riesling where we seek to find a balance between acid and sugar without either being dominant. The resulting wine is fresh and balanced, with a fuller fruit profile and weighted mouthfeel. This style of Riesling is approachable and delicious when consumed young, however can develop in complexity and richness with careful cellaring.