2017 | Dry River | Gewurztraminer

Complex, spicy, luscious and savoury. This is an exemplary Gewurztraminer of serious depth and, seemingly everlasting, length.

Producer Information

Dry River Wines is a wine estate in the Martinborough region in the North Island of New Zealand. The producer has earned a strong reputation for its entire portfolio, though Pinot Noir, Syrah and Chardonnay are perhaps the most sought after. The red wine line-up also includes a Tempranillo and The Twelve Spies blend. The latter was introduced with the 2017 vintage and is a combination of Pinot Noir, Tempranillo, and a component of blended Syrah and Viognier. Other white wines are made from the Alsatian trio Riesling, Pinot Gris and Gewurztraminer as well as a Viognier from two tiny, recently planted blocks at both entrance driveways to the Dry River Estate Vineyard. In addition, late harvest wines are made, when conditions allow, from Riesling and, less frequently, Gewurztraminer. Sauvignon Blanc was renoved from the vineyard after the 2006 vintage. Dry River is regarded as one of the region's (and the country's) top producers. The wines are mostly sold via the winery mailing list, and retail listings are hard to find, earning it something of a cult status in the early 2000s. The old vines are farmed without irrigation at low cropping levels. Careful canopy management is designed to achieve optimum phenolic ripeness with modest alcohol levels. Winemaking in the early years was highly technical, although the estate retains low-volume production, low levels of new oak, and cool cellar maturation. Wines are bottled at an early stage of evolution and intended to evolve in the bottle and be long-lived. Unusually for New Zealand, natural corks are used, not screwcaps. The vineyard was established in 1979 by Dr Neil McCallum and his wife Dawn. It is one of the original group of Martinborough wineries, alongside Ata Rangi, Martinborough Vineyards and Chifney (now Margrain) In 2003 the vineyard and winery were sold to US investors Julian Robertson and Reg Oliver. McCallum stayed on as chief winemaker until retiring in 2011. The name comes from one of the first sheep stations in the South Wairarapa region. The estate is a few miles away, but the name was considered very apt for the very dry, free-draining gravely site. The first wines were bottled in 1984.

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