Brown Brothers Patricia Noble Riesling 2019

Noble riesling has been grown and made at Milawa since 1962, a vintage during which the then winemaker, John Graham Brown, remembers seeing a cloud of mould spores erupting from riesling fruit as it entered the crusher. It was botrytis and he was probably the first Aussie winemaker to see that the mould could be good, very good, for his riesling, turning it sweet and divinely drinkable.

The 2019 Noble riesling is golden in colour, viscous and sweet on the tongue with the kind of botrytis-complex intensity that makes wine writers with sweet tooths go weak at the knees. Where to start? The aromas are fragrant, floral and honeyed in dried apricot, cumquat, lime marmalade and almond. The palate is dense and beautifully balanced, built around layers of texture and sweet, citrus and dried fruit flavours. The trick with sweet wines is knowing how to manage acidity, making for a clean, bright finish.

Jeni Port

Wine critic at Winepilot

Jeni Port is one of Australia’s top wine communicators. Based in Melbourne, Jeni created the first wine column in the (then) Sun News-Pictorial before moving over to The Age and becoming that paper’s longest-serving wine writer. Over the years she has written for most Australian wine magazines and these days calls WinePilot home. She is also a Tasting Panel member on the Halliday Wine Companion. She was named Wine Communicator of the Year and Legend of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival in 2014 and in 2018 Legend of the Vine. She is a founding board member of Australian Women In Wine and is the co-deputy chair of Australia’s Wine List of the Year Awards and China’s Wine List of the Year Awards.

Wine writer and critic