Vickery Watervale Riesling 2022

"John Vickery is in the same league as Max Schubert and other great winemakers, most of whom are known for their reds."  Jeffrey Grosset 

John Vickery is the acknowledged old master of Riesling in Australia, with an illustrious career spanning nearly sixty years. In that time he has amassed an extraordinary awards tally of more than fifty Trophies and over four hundred Gold Medals.

"Riesling lovers are in seventh heaven. In the hands of masters like Keeda Zilm and the legendary John Vickery, great fruit becomes great wine. The Vickery Watervale Riesling ’22 is a real beauty. Intense, aromatic and in balance with citrus blossom, lime cordial, grapefruit and green apple layers underscored by taut acidity. Just grape, acidity and a little alcohol (12%), nothing else. What a magical mix. Precision plus, and all the ingredients are here for a long life."  Jeni Port

"Fruit was sourced from the vineyards of our dedicated growers; the Stanway' Slate Creek Vineyard (1975 plantings), Blenheim' Grace's Vineyard (1991 plantings), Koerner'  G1/G6/G4 Blocks (1997 & 2001 plantings), Castine' Hayshed Block (1999 plantings), Bryksy' Hickey’s Vineyard (2003 plantings) and Koerner' Dunstan’s Block (2017 plantings).

Pale yellow, with a tinge of green. On the nose apple blossom, hints of fennel and juicy, ripe stone fruits. The palate is pure and bright. A year showing full flavour ripeness, finesse and bright, balanced natural acidity. This wine is generous with a lovely zest. As with all Vickery Rieslings, this wine will be bright and fresh in its youth yet will reward careful cellaring for 10 -20 years."  Vickery Wines 

Expert reviews

"A stunning wine from a great vintage. It marries elegance and finesse with intensity and length. The palate has the pure lemon and lime juice characters of great Watervale Rieslings, enveloped in a sea of fine and taut acidity. Has a very long future for those who care to wait."  Nick Munday, Canterbury Wines - 96 points and Special Value Wine  ★ 

"What’s better than one great vintage? Two great vintages in a row. Clare Valley winemakers must be wondering what they did right to earn two fantastic years side by side: 2021 and 2022. Riesling lovers are in seventh heaven. In the hands of masters like Keeda Zilm and the legendary John Vickery, great fruit becomes great wine. The Vickery Watervale Riesling ’22 is a real beauty. Intense, aromatic and in balance with citrus blossom, lime cordial, grapefruit and green apple layers underscored by taut acidity. Just grape, acidity and a little alcohol (12%), nothing else. What a magical mix. Precision plus, and all the ingredients are here for a long life. Drink: 2022-2032."  Jeni Port, Wine Pilot – 95 points

"Pale straw in the glass, fresh and bright. Fragrant and pretty, lemon juice, lemon blossom, bath salts and wet stone. The palate is fine, focussed and has a steely, driven line of acidity running through it. Lovely brightness, poise and presence. Drink: 2023–2033."  Aaron Brasher, The Real Review - 95 points

"This is elegantly fragrant on the nose showing white flesh nectarine, fig, crunchy apple and lemon pith notes, leading to a finely expressed palate that's sleek and lingering. Gorgeously poised and enticing with a sustained structured finish. At its best: 2025 to 2038."  Sam Kim, Wine Orbit – 95 points

"Where the Eden Valley Riesling speaks of rocks and flowers, this 2022 Watervale Riesling is all lime flesh, green apples and salted citrus. It has a fleshy/pillowy lavender character that laces both the aromas and the palate, making for a very complex, focused wine. There's a soft talc/powder inflection through the wine. It's very smart."  Erin Larkin, Wine Advocate - 94+ points

Awards

Special Value Wine – Canterbury Wines  ★ 

John Vickery

John Vickery is the acknowledged old master of Riesling in Australia, with an illustrious career spanning nearly sixty years, culminating in the extraordinary awards tally of more than fifty Trophies and over four hundred Gold Medals.

John Vickery has been instrumental in shaping the history of Riesling in Australia. Working his first vintage back in 1951, John Vickery built his illustrious career around strict attention to detail and old-fashioned hard work. His fastidious nature and particular ways are legendary and an integral part of greatness.

His mastery began with Leo Buring in 1955 at Chateau Leonay winery, where the focus was on Eden Valley and Watervale fruit. Without any modern-day processing, equipment winemaking was quite a crude process, which shows true testament to his outstanding ability. Vickery’s hallmark approaches were cool fermentation and careful handling, so it was in the latter years with the introduction of refrigeration and airbag presses, that John was best able to capture the Riesling grape’s fine delicate flavours.

With more than fifty Trophies, over four hundred Gold Medals and a Jimmy Watson for good measure, John Vickery is recognized as an inspiration and benchmark for many young (and old) winemakers. Highlights of his career include winning the 2007 Wolf Blass Riesling Award at the Canberra International Riesling Challenge. He was humbled to be judged by his peers as Australia’s Greatest Living Winemaker in a survey conducted by Epicure in 2003. However, he considers his most rewarding contribution to the Australian Wine Industry is being the first to re-introduce the screw cap with the 1998 Richmond Grove Watervale and Barossa Rieslings. This was by any measure the single most significant event in the improvement in the quality of Australian Riesling. In 2007 John was awarded the Medal of Order of Australia for 'service to the wine industry as an oenologist, particularly through the development of innovative methods for Riesling production.'

About Vickery Wines

Although John Vickery is in his mid-80s and retired for many years, his name endures on the labels of riesling wines produced by the Hesketh family’s WD Wines group. John Vickery, Robert Hesketh and the late Peter Lehmann were all close friends and contemporaries as well as business associates. When Peter's son Philip Lehmann was winemaker for WD Wines, the Vickery brand was created and John Vickery was invited to consult. The first wine released under the Vickery label was the 2014 Watervale Riesling and since then a Clare Valley and Eden Valley Riesling have been made each year.

Today Vickery Wines is John's winemaking experience partnered alongside the talented winemaking team of Keeda Zim and Andrew Hardy. Together they create Rieslings that showcase John's extensive expertise with the variety.

"The wines are made very much in the Vickery style" says Hesketh. "That means absolute flavour. John is massive on flavour. He believes most of the flavour is in the pressings, so some pressings are put back into the wine after the primary free-run fermentation. Light pressings, not heavy. So there’s less austerity in a Vickery wine. John is also a stickler for detail, he’s pedantic about quality and attention to detail."

Vickery in his heyday was also known to be almost fanatical about cleanliness; winery hygiene was scrupulous. Every drip of wine had to be cleaned up pronto. Vickery may have slowed down a bit, but he’s still involved in the process, particularly picking dates and blending.

"John has been involved in every vintage. He loves going into the vineyards and discussing picking times. He’s also involved in the blending with the winemakers, Keeda Zilm and Andrew Hardy. The Vickery wines are more about how John does things, which is inevitably different to the way Andrew or Keeda does things. Both have made a lot of riesling in their time, Hardy at Knappstein, then Petaluma, and Zilm at O’Leary Walker. But, with the Vickery wines, the man himself still calls the shots.

Large sections of the above text were taken from an article by Huon Hooke in the Real Review titled "Vickery the riesling master".

Sadly, John Vickery,  the father of Riesling in Australia, died on 23rd September 2023 at the age of 90.