Verdelho 2021

The Granite Belt 2021 Whites are continuing to show as excellent, this time a lovely Verdelho from the Heritage Estate Cottonvale Vineyard and the skills of John Handy.

The wine shows in the glass as light flaxen and melded with just a possibility of pale bronze.  As soon as I encountered the bouquet I thought 'Yeast' and in confirmation on the back label is written "fermented using a variety of yeast strains" - I suspect John Handy has become a master of yeasts and fermentation.

A brioche and sourdough croissant fragrance was delivered to my senses by this redolent wine which also generated floating wafts of newly ripened banana, packham pears, light citrus and honeydew melon.

The palate also features the yeast effects with some lovely yeasty/bready tastes and a slight viscosity which is smooth, gently gliding and just a little creamy, I haven't encountered a verdelho before that has this level of assimilation of textural caress and fruit expression. The fruits are somewhat subdued grapefruit, light pineapple, honeydew melon, lemon rind and some shy mandarin.  The wine is dry and there is enough citrus acidity to excite your palate and perfectly underpin the yeasty textural aspects.  The finish is slightly sour rind and a little pithy and it produces a long tapering mouth pucker.  A quite different verdelho awaits your palate at Heritage Estate - yeasty and fruity, texture and tension, creamy and juxtaposed with sour puckering pithiness and a little citrusy acidic tingling - great artistry here!

"A generous expression with slippery texture and strong, sweet tropical fruit characters spiked with clove spice. Scents and flavours echo each other nicely, with quite a bit more concentration in the palate than the more gentle, fragrant perfume. Acidity is firm in the wine, tense and slightly coarse, but the gist is a more potent and complex rendition of the variety on hand."

Halliday Wine Companion.