Head Riesling 2024

The fruit here is sourced from the Trial Hill Vineyard near Pewsey Vale in the Eden Valley, at the relatively high altitude of around 460 metres. The site, 1.8 hectares, is terraced and contoured, and the vines are around 80 years of age. Fermentation was in stainless steel, after which the wine spent three months on lees. Just 300 dozen made. 2024 is a cracking vintage for the region and this is ridiculously good value. The colour is the very palest lemon hue one could imagine. Opening notes reveal the chalk and minerality supporting the wine, with the limes and sea spray notes overlaid. This is delicate and fragrant, focused and offering good underlying intensity. There is juicy acidity and we see the emergence of hints of mango and grapefruit on the palate. There is unwavering balance and excellent length. A classic and classically beautiful Riesling with fifteen to eighteen years of pleasure ahead. If Alex Head is regularly making Riesling of this sublime quality, it won’t be long before he is mentioned in the same dispatches as some very highly regarded producers.

Ken Gargett

Contributor at Winepilot

Ken was born and bred in Brisbane, Queensland. He had a non-trendy, perfectly happy childhood, in a family convinced alcohol meant instant condemnation to Hades. But a break fishing on the Great Barrier Reef, and some good wine, started a serious obsession that eventually took over. It did not stop Ken being chastised later for drinking Pol champagne, disgusted he’d drink anything made by a Cambodian dictator. Now, Ken mostly writes on wine, champagne and spirits for various newspapers, magazines and books, but is perhaps best known for his work in The Courier Mail. He also has a little sideline writing on cigars, fishing, travel and food. When not writing, fly-fishing for trout in NZ or bonefish on the flats of Cuba, travelling or smoking cigars, he is no doubt following a variety of sporting teams – the occasionally glorious Queensland Reds rugby, the dysfunctional Washington Redskins, the dodgy Arsenal and especially revels in the world restored to its proper axis with the return of the Ashes to their rightful home.

Wine writer and critic