Wine writer RICHARD CALVER highlights the differences when it comes to handing out trophies for rieslings.

The trophies were about to be given out at the prestigious annual riesling event that Canberra hosts. 

It was a rainy evening and the 23rd International Canberra Riesling Challenge Awards were held at the Hotel Realm where I scored an invitation. 

As usual there was a mammoth task visited on the judges, having to taste and grade 326 Rieslings from 140 wineries across five countries, Australia, France, Germany, NZ and the US. 

The best riesling from the Canberra District was the 2024 Brindabella Hills Riesling. This is the first year that Nick O’Leary has been making Brindabella Hills wines, and this one beat out three of his own entries to take the trophy for the best of the Canberra 12 that were entered. 

I spoke with Nick at the event and he was straightforward in the rationale for this wine to be the winner: “It’s simple, the fruit was pristine.” 

After the awards ceremony, the wine was on taste and it was a splendid example of a local riesling, grown from local fruit. The bouquet is complex with a lovely lime peel scent dominating. It possessed a minerality that was as clean and fresh as the pleasant citrus finish with a line of acid that augurs well for its cellaring. This is the best Brindabella Hills wine I have tasted, deserving of the trophy.

The overall winner that was awarded the Best Wine of the 2024 Challenge Trophy couldn’t have been a greater contrast to the local winner. 

This was a 2023 Frogmore Creek Iced Riesling from Frogmore Creek Wines, Coal River Valley, Tasmania, named after a seasonal creek that runs through the property.

This is a comparatively new winery: the first vintage was made in 2002. This wine also won the trophy for the best Sweet Riesling. Again, after the awards ceremony we were offered a sample. On taste, it was sweet, heady, reflecting a ripe stone fruit intensity without being claggy, ideal as a dessert wine.

I spoke with Shelley Bickerstaff, national brand manager at Frogmore Creek: “In Canada and other parts of Europe they freeze the wine on the vine. But in Tasmania we don’t get to those temperatures, so we take the pressed juice and freeze the content that then releases the concentrate, which is what we ferment and make the wine out of. 

“This was the first award that we put this one into so we’re pleased with the win.”

Shelley said that the winemaker, Alain Rousseau, was proud to make this wine from the winery’s cold-climate grapes and she passed on his comment that the “Iced Riesling is perfect for summertime enjoyed simply with vanilla ice cream as my wife and I do.”

It’s the sort of quote that leaves you itching for a punchline, but there was no punch line, so I thought what a humble bloke.