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Buy OnlineTrophy for Champion Emerging White Wines – Aotearoa Regional Wine Competition 2024
Gold Medal – Aotearoa Regional Wine Competition 2024
The Albariño grape, originating from the coastal region of Biaxias on the North West coast of Spain is fast becoming a trendy and popular variety around the world, and it seems to be finding a home here in New Zealand. This is a fantastic release from Mount Riley and as always with their wines, offers terrific value.
Winery notes (2024 Vintage)
"Our 2024 Albariño is made from grapes grown on Mount Riley’s St Andrew Vineyard south of Blenheim township. Aromas of lemon, lime and stonefuit. The palate is medium bodied with a brisk, firm freshness in the mouth. Dry with ripe fruit flavours firm acidity, and a salty saline finish.
Albariño can be served as an aperitif or matched with food. Known as Spain's ‘seafood wine’, Albariño is perfect with shellfish and seafood, salads and pasta. Best pairings include oysters, crab, prawns, mussels, white fish, fish cakes, seafood pasta and risotto, sushi and sashimi, chicken, and creamy cheeses."
5 Stars & 93/100 Sam Kim, Wine Orbit, July 2024 (2024 Vintage)
"Pristine and elegantly lifted, the bouquet shows green rockmelon, fig, crunchy apple and jasmine nuances, leading to a finely textured palate that's lively and lingering. The wine offers lovely fruit purity with excellent structure, making it delightfully appealing. At its best: now to 2027."
Reviews for the 2023 vintage below…
5 Stars, Best Buy & Number 1 Cuisine NZ Other Whites Tasting, February 2024 (2023 Vintage)
"I was nothing short of giddy when an albariño took the top spot among myriad other contenders. I have a passion for albariño and it’s exciting to see this category grow in New Zealand. My hope is that one day, hopefully in the not too distant future, we will have so many albariño entries it will be deserving of its own category. Watch this space!
As a new-world wine country, we are still learning what grows well here. While we’ve hit the jackpot with sauvignon blanc, which is phenomenally popular globally, trends are fickle and it’s always prudent not to keep all one’s grapes in one basket. So we must always look to what could be the next big thing and albariño could be it. While it shares as high an acid profile as sauvignon, it lacks the greenness that can make sauvignon blanc divisive. Instead, the experience is that of bright, fresh citrus and positively mouthwatering salinity that can only make us dream of hot summer days in Galicia in north- west Spain, from where the grape hails.
Luckily albariño grows well here and we are seeing some fantastic examples coming from all over New Zealand. Case in point, this stunning example from Marlborough is rich and inviting on the nose with layers of ripe citrus, green peaches and white blossoms. The palate is bright and precise with wonderful texture, stunning salinity and incredible length of flavour that is driven through the palate by the focussed and steely acid spine."
