Three Winemaking Techniques in One Riesling

Texture in white wine can come from some residual grape sugar, it can come from some grape skins, or it can come from barrel fermentation. And this wine's got all three. We recently held a blind tasting of Textual Rieslings, part of our deep dive series at younggutofwine.com. Our panel of winemakers and sommeliers picked their favourites, tasted completely blind, and this wine, the 2025 Napstein The Insider Riesling, was selected as one of the top wines, and in the glass, aromas of white florals and lemons and musk stick, along with some slight talcum lead. Then on the palate, there's this really unctuous lime and Bickford's Lemon Barley cordial thread that just races across the palate with a zippy, refreshing acidity. And it finishes with a sense of red apple skins and a waxy texture. It's very surprising in a very subtle way. The fruit for this comes from the Clare Valley, where warm days build intensity and cool nights retains freshness in the grapes. But this wine is far from the classic Clare Valley image of a bone dry wine with tooth tingling acidity. Napstein is one of the most historically significant pioneers of the region. The winery building was built in the late 1800s, originally as a brewery. Then Tim Napstein converted it to a winery in the 1970s. And it was from that period that Napstein, along with a few other producers, helped define the Clare's classic bone dry, lime zest, Riesling archetype. And today, the wines are made by Michael Caine and The Insider is their experimental label. And that history in Napstein's DNA is what makes the winemaking in this wine so remarkable. Michael separated the fruit into three parcels, each given a unique winemaking treatment. One parcel had a little skin contact. Another parcel was fermented in oak barrels, much like the way many serious Chardonnays are made. And a third parcel was pressed immediately to stainless steel tank with the ferment then arrested before reaching full dryness. And when you consider the traditional mould of Australian Riesling, then this is a quietly innovative departure from that script that loses nothing of that Clare Valley lime and mineral DNA. For our full deep dive into textural Riesling, head to younggunofwine.com and check out the deep dive. Cheers.