Heroes Vineyard Dry Riesling 2024
- 93+
- $40
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It starts with an echo, the nose takes you to that mysterious place behind the hills where that echo resides; lemon sorbet, lime leaf and finger lime at first, then citrus wax, meadow grass, lanolin and the faint preserved-citrus note of something held longer in salt.
The hills almost literally do stand in the way. Heroes sits around 190 metres above sea level, fifteen kilometres from the Southern Ocean, with the Otway ranges between vineyard and water. James Thomas describes the climate as maritime through the wetter shoulders of the season before summer takes on something more continental: warm days, cool nights, then a rather decisive return of winter weather that can terminate useful ripening almost overnight. The Riesling grows in sandy clay loams over penetrable clay and weathered sandstone, in a vineyard James farms organically, without tillage or irrigation, the root system reaching down towards two metres.
Picked on 21 March at just 1.7kg per vine, the fruit was wild-fermented in stainless steel and bottled without fining. There is very little cellar intervention to stand between the vineyard and the drinker.
The palate is bone dry: lemony, white grapefruit gathering into a concentration that feels more tensile than weighty. Grapefruit zest gradually coats the mouth, acidity that is mouthwatering and cold, cascading over river rocks. Bitter melon and grilled walnut appear later, pickled bilimbi and the faintest trace of TDN. The finish becomes increasingly savoury and persists.
By the second day the fruit has filled the frame more broadly, without loosening the wine’s edges. There is now honeydew melon in tiny doses and green pears. James talks about terroir as something glimpsed rather than pinned down, altered every year by season and circumstance. This wine behaves like that: first citrus, then bitterness, then some orchard fruit texture, then the citrus echo travelling back towards the hills.
Liinaa Berry is a Melbourne-based wine critic and consultant with over a decade of experience as a sommelier and wine buyer across Australia and around the world where she has built award-winning wine programs and championed independent producers with conviction. Now focused on reviewing and writing, Liinaa brings a floor-trained palate and commercial insight to her assessments. She is also the Melbourne Ambassador for Star Wine List and serves on the committee of Sommeliers Australia. An advocate for site-driven wines and thoughtful farming, Liinaa is particularly drawn to producers who articulate a clear sense of place. Her tasting philosophy centres on structure, balance and context — always asking not just how a wine tastes, but why it matters.
