By John Rozentals.
Trevor Mast: creating one of Australia’s iconic shirazes was the easy part.
For Trevor Mast, the much loved late winemaker at central Victoria’s Mount Langi Ghiran, who died of early-onset alzheimers in 2012, creating one of Australia’s iconic shirazes was the easy part.
More difficult was taming his beloved riesling, the desire for which he had naturally picked up while studying grapegrowing and winemaking in Germany.
It wouldn’t be wrong to classify him as a riesling tragic.
When I spoke with him in the mid-1990s, the wines Mast seemed proudest of were those he had fashioned from that prince of white varieties though he admitted he still had much to learn.
Certainly the dry whtes he made left very much in the shade the sauvignon blancs and pinot grigios that so dominate today’s bottleshop shelves.
Fortunately, the current Mount Langi Ghiran team seems to have inherented this passion and has fashioned some delightful long-living wines from riesling.
WINE REVIEWS
Mount Langi Ghiran 2019 Talus Riesling ($35): What great dry riesling is all about — austerity and the piercing flavour of citrus molified by a touch of hallmark florals. This dry white has a tremendous cellaring future but if you must open it now match with simply grilled white-fleshed fish such as whiting or bream. And the wine has enough acidity to probably ignore the accompanying lemon.
Mount Langi Ghiran 2019 Cliff Edge Riesling ($25): Newcomers to the variety will find this more generous in flavour, softer and generally more appealing than the leaner, more expensive Talus. The 2019 Cliff Edge Riesling is sourced from two premium sites at Mount Langi Ghiran: the Langi Old Block Riesling planted in 1975 and the Hollows vineyard planted in 2004 — a marginally warmer site on the northern slopes of Mount Langi Ghiran. The two combine to create an intense and balanced riesling with great cellaring potential.
WINE OF THE WEEK
Blue Pyrenees Estate 2016 Midnight Cuvée ($34): When Blue Pyrenees Estate was estalished by the French in central Victoria near the town of Avoca one its stated aims was to make premium sparkling wine. Mission accomplished. This is its flagship bubbly — a blanc de blanc style made principally from chardonnay. It is delicate enough to be treated as a pure aperitif, yet substantial enough to accompany dishes such as sushi.
