Riesling pleas

Riesling. It's been one of the success stories of this State's cool climate wine industry. And it's not hard to see why when you taste the superb quality of the Rieslings that have collected trophies and gold medals at Tasmanian Wine Shows over the years. 

What's hard to swallow is that Riesling – regardless of where it is grown in Australia – receives so much enthusiastic support from wine judges and sommeliers and so little interest from consumers.

According to Wine Australia's National Vintage Report 2025, Riesling production in Australia this past year fell another 5 percent when compared with 2024. 

Okay – apart from Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Gris, Semillon, Prosecco and Gewürztraminer – all of the country's major white varieties produced smaller harvests in 2025.

This time, however, Riesling slipped yet another place in the white grape pecking order. Nationally, it is now the eighth-largest white variety by tonnage, having given up its seventh spot to Prosecco in 2025.

Chardonnay, meanwhile, is not just at the top of the ladder, it has its head in the clouds. There were more than 286,000 tonnes of it picked nationally in 2025. Almost 14 times more than went into Riesling picking bins.

To add insult to injury, Riesling actually fetches higher prices at the weighbridge than any other white variety in the country apart from Grüner Veltliner. In 2025, the National Vintage Report shows the figure topped $1300 per tonne.

Chardonnay brought an average return of $685 per tonne.

As surprising as those recent figures may seem, they're by no means newsworthy.

We've been falling out of love with the noble Germanic variety for the past couple of decades.

So much for the Riesling revival.

At its peak in 2005, Riesling accounted for more than 42,000 tonnes of the Australian wine harvest. By 2010, the figure had fallen to 30,000 tonnes. In 2025, the Riesling crush nationally was 20,810 tonnes. Less than half what it was 20 years ago.

One percent of Australia's total wine grape crop.... and falling.

The numbers are different but it's a similar story in Tasmania.

In 2025, Riesling in Tasmania accounted for barely 4.5 percent of the State's wine grape harvest of 23,000 tonnes. Back in 2010, Riesling's share was a miserable 8.0 percent.

"In common with Rieslings from around the world, Australian Riesling has had to battle to endure," the Wine Australia stated in its 2020 National Vintage Report.

"It has had to be finer in quality than its peers in order to overcome negative preconceptions, lower in price than its quality warrants and be championed by illustrious winemakers in a way that Chardonnay or Sauvignon never have."

Time for a change.

Now that summer is finally with us, Tasmania's Rieslings are the ideal choice for alfresco entertaining. It doesn't matter whether you're greeting guests, watching the sun go down, or lighting up the barbeque, no other white grape variety comes close to being as versatile, according to Freycinet Vineyard's Claudio Radenti.

"Rieslings from Tasmania are really quite special," he says.

"They're really well-suited to our lifestyle and the kinds of food we eat today. Rieslings grown in cool climates like ours have great natural balance to them. You get this wonderful intensity of flavours yet there's a delicacy to them at the same time."

Radenti has been a prolific award winner with his Tasmanian East Coast iteration of Riesling.

Back in September, the 'fresh off the bottling line' 2025 Freycinet was one of just two Rieslings from that vintage to be awarded a gold medal at the 2025 Winewise Small Vignerons Awards, judged in Canberra.

In the following month, Freycinet's 2025 Riesling was only Tasmanian entry to be awarded an Elite gold in its class at the 2025 International Riesling Challenge.

"The great thing about Riesling as far as winemaking is concerned is that you don't have to muck about with it," Radenti explains.

"The wines have such great flavours and acid/pH balance that all you really have to do is look after them in the winery. The good ones turn out to have really superb length, and they're able to offer both refreshment and longevity. There's always plenty of opportunity there for the consumer to find something they can really enjoy."

The renowned East Coast vineyard has close to 2.5ha of Riesling. That's about 15 percent of Freycinet's total vineyard area. 

Radenti and his wife Lindy Bull have championed the variety since the earliest days of their winemaking careers.

The couple trained and worked interstate and overseas while finishing their degrees. Their last port of call before returning home to Tasmania in 1992 was Western Australia's Great Southern region. An acknowledged producer of superb cool climate wines.

On taking up residence at the Bull family's winery, the pair were inspired to make Riesling a flagship variety along with Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.

"We were one of the early pioneers on the East Coast, along with Craigie Knowe Vineyard," Radenti recalls.

He says one of the keys to the early successes of both vineyards was their southern latitude.

"With that comes a lovely, cool maritime climate," he adds.

"We're surrounded by water. That's the key to the quality of the wine and to the quality of the State's fresh produce as well.

"Fruit, grapes and vegetables – they're all grown slowly over a long period of time when compared with the mainland. And they develop this wonderful intensity and brightness of flavour. And of course, plenty of natural acidity."

Early Freycinet Rieslings came with a dollop of Müller-Thurgau to make them soft and fruity. A 100 percent varietal wine was produced for the first time in 1998. The recipe has remained unchanged ever since.

With time, an additional wine did enter the Freycinet portfolio, the Louis Schönburger Riesling. It's a blend of 67 percent Schönburger and 33 percent Riesling, a real smoothie that sits comfortably alongside spicy/Asian-accented dishes.

Indeed, Riesling on its own comes in a wide variety of styles, from bracingly acidic and bone-dry to opulently sweet and fruity. Somewhere in between are the marvellously rich, bottle-aged wines with their hallmark flavours of honey and lightly toasted bread. Riesling aromas typically evoke descriptors that include green apple, floral, citrus, or honey notes. Wines produced from the coolest parts of the State – or from especially cool seasons – might also be redolent of lightly scented talcum powder.

Meanwhile, hot, dry seasons, sunburnt grapes, or prolonged bottle ageing give rise to wines with small traces of a naturally produced compound called trimethyl dihydronapthalene (TDN. Its presence results in complex, often elusive wine characters that are somewhat kerosene-like in aroma.

It can be a hallmark of ultra-premium German Riesling, for example.

Crisp acidity and low to moderate alcohol (say 11.5 per cent to 13.0 per cent by volume) keep Riesling wines clean and fresh in the mouth, even sweeter versions. They also underpin one the variety's greatest assets – its capacity to improve with medium to long term cellaring.

Fancy something different?

Some Tasmanian producers like Moorilla create sparkling wines from Riesling.

The company's St. Matthias Vineyard in the Tamar Valley produces Riesling with intense tropical fruit characters that winemaker Conor van der Reest believes are well suited for a minimally-aged sparkling wine under the Moorilla Praxis label.

Wind back the clock to 2007 and it was the quality of our Riesling that in part contributed to the young Canadian accepting David Walsh's call to join him at Moorilla to 'overhaul the winery, revive the vineyards and make stupendous wines.'

"Tasmania's climate on the whole really puts it among the top wine regions of the world, especially for Riesling," van der Reest says.

"The greatest challenges are the things that are beyond your control, like frosts and hailstorms. But I'd rather work in a cool climate wine region and have to deal with its consequences than deal with grapes picked at 40 degrees and having the fruit already cooked out of them.

"The wines here are so elegant and pure. That stays with them forever."

Let's hope Riesling remains in Tasmanian vineyards for that long.

Last page update: January 2026