Pegasus Bay Waipara Valley Riesling 2024

Pegasus Bay Waipara Valley Riesling 2024"Classy stuff. Estate grown at Waipara, in top vintages it is richly fragrant and intense, with flavours of citrus fruits and honey, complex and luscious. Based on mature vines and stop fermented in a distinctly medium style, it breaks into full stride at about three years old and can mature well for over a decade. The bright, light lemon green 2024 is from a low yielding vintage. Already highly drinkable, it has lovely freshness and poise, with well

"Classy stuff. Estate-grown at Waipara, in top vintages it is richly fragrant and intense, with flavours of citrus fruits and honey, complex and luscious. Based on mature vines and stop-fermented in a distinctly medium style, it breaks into full stride at about three years old and can mature well for over a decade. The bright, light lemon/green 2024 is from a low-yielding vintage. Already highly drinkable, it has lovely freshness and poise, with well-ripened, peachy, lemony flavours, a faint suggestion of honey, and excellent delicacy and vigour. Gently sweet … with finely balanced acidity, it's a very harmonious wine, well worth cellaring to 2027+" Michael Cooper, May 2025

"Delicious on the nose and palate, a wine of complexity and purity. Aromas of apples and limes, mineral and honeysuckle, perhaps a lick of botrytis. Delicious, fresh and dry as the wine touches the palate, flavours mirror the bouquet supported by a backbone of acidity, salivating freshness and long finish with lemon peel and mineral. Best drinking from day of purchase through 2035+" Cameron Douglas, Master Sommelier, Mar 2025

"One taste of this wine conjures up ripe bunches of golden, translucent berries with succulent, citrus fruit flavours and pure honey underscored with a backbone of oyster shell. Delicious Riesling that is ready to drink" Bob Campbell, Master of Wine, The Real Review, Apr 2025

"Pure and vibrant, with aromas of lime blossoms, green apples and white peaches. Medium-bodied with lively acidity balancing the gentle sweetness. Tense and mouthwatering, with a mineral-driven finish. Elegant and bright" James Suckling, Jamessuckling.com, Oct 2025

It has a pale lemon hue. Opulently scented, the nose unfurls in waves of citrus, floral and tropical tones. A surge of mandarin spray, pineapple, honeydew melon, and citrus blossom, ebbs to reveal an undercurrent of green apple, kaffir lime leaf and oriental spice, drifting over a steely mineral floor. The palate is rich yet precise, a textured mouthfeel and charming sweetness balanced by appetising acidity and wellpitched phenolics. This is an elegant and stylised wine, crisp and structural, with a long, resonant finish.

The vineyard is located within the Waipara Valley of North Canterbury, on free draining, north facing terraces. It benefits from being in the lee of the Teviotdale Range, giving maximumprotection from the Pacific’s easterly breezes and thus creating a unique mesoclimate. The vines are over 35 years old, with a large proportion planted on their own roots. They are located on the “Glasnevin Gravels” where greywacke stones, silt and loam have been washed down from the mountains over the millennia. The soil is of low fertility, resulting in naturally reduced vine vigour. This produces low yields of optimally ripened, high quality, flavourful grapes, which fully express the qualities of this unique terroir. The vineyard has warm days, but the nights are amongst the coolest in the Waipara Valley, drawing out the ripening period of the grapes, while still retaining good natural acidity.

Cooler and windier conditions during Spring meant lower crop levels, keeping fruit thinning to a minimum. The weather gods then handed us the opposite during Summer, with a warm and settled state prevailing, so this smaller crop was able to mature beautifully. Autumn was similarly favourable, allowing each variety to be picked at its optimum ripeness. Our 2024 harvest saw smaller yields across the board, but as a result we were blessed with intense fruit flavour and concentration, delivering some outstanding wine.

With its large diurnal range and long lingering autumns, North Canterbury is an ideal playground for riesling, making it possible to create concentrated wines that still possess favourable acidity and finesse. Our house style involves giving the grapes an extended “hang time” and picking (when possible) with a portion of noble botrytis, to enable our site to express itself harmoniously through this variety. Following harvest, the free run juice was fermented slowly at cool temperatures to help the wine express the unique characters of our region. At all stages, the wine was handled very carefully to help retain a little of its natural carbon dioxide. This has resulted in a small amount of spritzig, which adds extra liveliness to the wine.