Riesling legacy

Are Riesling enthusiasts really cleverer, wittier and better-looking than your average wine consumer? UK wine critic Jancis Robinson once observed that was the case. Sure, the comment was tongue-in-cheek, but they're a cluey lot, those Riesling lovers.

Not only is the variety perhaps the most lauded white wine grape, its best expressions are among the most affordable of those regarded as classic wines. They can also be the most diverse in style and character.

Some winemakers choose to ferment Riesling long and cool in stainless steel. Others throw caution to the wind and wild ferment it in concrete eggs or large format oak. Job done, consumers can enjoy Riesling young and fruity, or toasty and bottle-aged; lean and austere, or lusciously sweet and ultra-concentrated. 

Moorilla's Conor van der Reest makes two quite different styles. Muse Riesling has a lineage stretching back to the iconic property's inaugural 1962 vintage. Meanwhile, Praxis Sparkling Riesling - created by van der Reest in 2012 - has become a latter-day brand champion.

"It's our largest selling wine: by the glass and by the bottle; on the MONA site and on the boat visitors take to MONA;  even in the wholesale market more broadly," says the Canadian-born winemaker.

"We can't make enough of it."

Van der Reest says that when Tasmanian wine pioneer Claudio Alcorso first established Moorilla - north of Hobart - Riesling was his vine of choice.

"Moorilla began as something of an experiment with 90 Riesling cuttings planted in 1958," he adds.

"They were sent to him by businessman David Wynn. Wynn was responsible for establishing Wynns Coonawarra Estate in South Australia. Alcorso was actively discouraged from planting vines by his friends and government agencies. The conventional wisdom back then was that Tasmania was too cool for viticulture."

Alcorso's hunch that his riverbank site might be well-suited to the noble German variety proved correct. Indeed, Moorilla Estate - as the property was then called - won a coveted gold medal with its first commercial wine release. The 1976 Rhine Riesling not only picked up gold at the Royal Hobart Agricultural Show that same year, it was awarded the Trophy for Best Tasmanian Wine.

The former Italian immigrant went on to become a household name as a patron of the arts and the founder of Silk and Textiles, now Sheridan Australia. Sadly, Alcorso's plans for his beloved Moorilla Estate were dashed when the family company went into receivership in the mid-1990s.

Moorilla - along with its vineyard and premium Tasmanian wine business - was purchased in 1995 by Glenorchy local, David Walsh. The professional gambler and art lover allowed Alcorso to continue to live on the property until his death in September 2000. Today, the site above the Derwent is home to Walsh's Museum of Old and New Art (MONA). It opened to national and international acclaim in January 2011.

"As a child, I walked past this place many times," Walsh recalls. 

"Had I entered, I would have encountered Claudio's earliest vintages.... When the small family company foundered, I really bought Moorilla on a whim. I didn't buy it for the wine.

"I was simply seeking an art warehouse. Now it's the site of MONA, I see myself as custodian of Claudio's heritage and of all those that were here for thousands of years before him. Buying Moorilla is among the best decisions I've ever made."

Vines on the site now receive kid-glove treatment from full-time vineyard manager Peter Mueller.

"Viticulture here is challenging," van der Reest admits. 

"Our soils are pretty diverse. We have four metres and more of deep, silty clay. But there's also risen siltstone bedrock on only a few centimetres of sand. Those growing conditions not only bring massive differences in vine size, vigour and fruit composition, they result in significant yield differences.

Few of the vines Claudio Alcorso planted have survived the test of time.

"Many succumbed to a destructive trunk disease," van der Reest explains.

"It's caused by various fungi that colonise the vine, reducing grape yields and eventually killing off the vine. All the old Riesling vines had gone before I arrived here."

Worst affected were Alcorso's original Gewürztraminer plantings. Those old vines were replaced by Pinot Noir six years ago. Moorilla's 2.8ha vineyard is now almost all Pinot Noir, with the exception of a small (0.4ha) Riesling block that van der Reest helped plant down by the property's front gate.  

A significant amount of re-development has also been going on at Moorilla's St Matthias Vineyard in northern Tasmania. It's at Rosevears, on the west bank of the Tamar River. The 13ha vineyard - purchased in 1993, prior to Walsh ownership - was established in 1983 by Launceston pharmacist Laurie Wing. 

Plantings of Chardonnay Musque were established there 11 years ago. They are van der Reest's pet project. He had them specially registered for use in Australia. 

Vineyard manager Jesse Graffam is now overseeing Cabernet Sauvignon's removal, having added 0.9ha of Syrah (Shiraz) as a future-proofing measure.

Riesling at St Matthias is fully dedicated to Praxis Sparkling.

"Moorilla produces fruit that is richer and is better suited to the dry spatlese-style we make for Muse table wines," van der Reest says.

"They are two very different Rieslings. It's taken us a while to get our heads around that, to work out which site is suited to each style."

On-going changes at Moorilla and St Matthias maybe small and incremental but they involve long-term thinking.

"We're about one-third of the way through a 20-year program," van der Reest notes.

"Our goal is entirely quality-driven. It's about maximising each wine's potential, of ensuring our vineyards fully express in their wines what their pioneering owners saw in these special sites all those years ago."

First published 13 December 2020: The Examiner