Castle Rock Estate has recently released its new vintage 2019 Castle Rock Estate ‘Porongurup’ Riesling alongside its 2018 Castle Rock Estate ‘Porongurup’ Pinot Noir.

The label’s long-established relationship and success with the Riesling varietal have helped demonstrate the Great Southern’s potential in the category.

The new addition to the winery’s roster brings its current Riesling label count to three.

According to Castle Rock Estate, their “Rieslings are some of the best examples from Western Australia”.

“Australian Riesling is obviously more than just Eden and Clare Valley,” said Castle Rock owner and winemaker Rob Diletti.

“This is what makes Australian winegrowing so exciting – you only need to look at the Rieslings from Frankland River, Tasmania and Mudgee to see the quality and diversity. Porongurup competes with the best of them.

“We are aiming to produce Riesling with a tightly wound structure enveloped by the stunning regional lime juice fruit characters. The core steely natural acidity creates this structure which is a hallmark of Castle Rock Rieslings. These are wines that will drink beautifully over the long term, developing a lovely silky mature texture at 15 to 20 years,” he continued.

“Really good Pinot Noir will come from cool climate vineyards and be grown on older vines at low yields. These characteristics of premium Pinot Noir will create balance, intensity and concentration of flavour. We are in a good position to have all these three components.

“The 2018 vintage was one of the great ones,” explained Rob. “The dry and mild season produced fruit with gorgeous natural acidity and excellent fruit purity.”

While Great Southern is Australia’s largest winegrowing region, the Porongurup sub-region is a compact, unique area with cool climate vineyards dating back to the mid-1970s with the Castle Rock Estate vines planted in 1983.