Casas Del Bosque Late Harvest Riesling 2013
Light golden in colour this complex wine reveals a seductive nose of mandarin rind, crème brulee and apricot. In the mouth lush notes of walnut, toasted almond and honey combine effortlessly with a bright, zesty acidity to give excellent structure and length.
89 pts The Wine Advocate
I tasted a sweet wine from Casas del Bosque for the first time with the 2013 Riesling Late Harvested, a wine with 225 grams of residual sugar produced with grapes from five-year-old vines that were harvested the 4th of July, 2013 (the equivalent of harvesting in January – from the next vintage!- in the northern hemisphere). The grapes were hand picked and pressed with a vertical press, and the juice fermented in well-seasoned French barriques, where the wine matured for nine months before bottling. By the time they were picked, the grapes had developed some botrytis, so the nose of the wine contains all of the descriptors of botrytis, honey, lanolin, orange peel, dry apricots and a volatile whiff. The palate is very intense with marked sweetness and it could do with just a little more acidity. I’m told other vintages are higher in acidity. A textbook botrytis wine anyway. 14,500 375-milliliter bottles produced and the price given is for a half-bottle.
All fruit was sourced from our own vineyard – located within the most fog affected, westernmost reaches of the Casablanca Valley. Sourced from a 5 year old block of Riesling planted on a sandy loam soil this wine is made from 100% Botrytis (or noble rot) affected grapes which were picked with a natural sugar level of 43.9°Brix. The vines used to make this wine were cropped at an average of 2.9 tonnes per hectare (1.2 tons per acre).
On arrival at the winery all grapes were first subjected to a whole bunch followed by an individual berry selection. The grapes were then loaded by hand into a vertical basket press where they were gently squeezed to a maximum pressure of 6 bar. The resulting juice was fed by gravity to fifth use French oak barrels where it was slowly fermented for 5 weeks with selected yeasts. Following fermentation the wine was racked and returned to second use French barrels where it was aged for a further eight months. After a total of 12 months in barrel the wine was racked to tank, filtered and bottled. This is a very limited edition wine with a total production of only 600 cases (7,200 bottles).
