2017 Wiley Vineyard Riesling - Terragena Vineyards

Candied lime, mint leaf, white nectarine. Grapefruit pith, new rubber, crunchy green pear. Daylilies and white hydrangeas, pickled ginger and cucumber skin. Green apple and citrus zest boom with pronounced aromatic intensity as they collide with fragrant flowers and brand-new tennis ball in this intricate and interesting bouquet. Intensely energetic on the palate showcasing underripe stone fruit and profound stony saline minerality, eventually revealing a touch of slightly bitter phenolics presented as green fern, cilantro stem, and pine sap. Medium bodied with fierce acidity that is wonderfully and deliciously in balance. Bone dry, tense, and tightly wound. This 2017 Wiley Vineyard Riesling by Terragena Vineyards is a captivating and compelling aromatic white from Anderson Valley.

Riesling is one of Europe's most noble light-skinned grape varieties and yet it rarely gets any hype in when grown California. This bottling, crafted using 100% Riesling sourced from the Wiley Vineyard in Anderson Valley, absolutely deserves as much attention as its fine European counterparts. It comes from one of the coldest and most coastal vineyard sites in Anderson Valley and reflects its cool marine-influenced terroir to a T. It is acid-driven and racy, expressing remarkable depth of fruit and distinct minerality combined with a dose of unique fresh foresty tones. This wine is still quite young and mostly primary but shows potential for significant development, and it would be quite interesting to compare it to a German or Alsatian equivalent after 10 or 20 years of bottle age. Really impressive stuff.