Garagiste Côtier Riesling 2017

World Wine – Barney Flanders from Garagistes (wine) of Mornington Peninsula decided he wanted to take a look at how carbonic maceration and skin contact might work in his white wine ferments. It begat this range of wines. All wines under the label Côtier are made with white grapes (well, gris is in a grey area, of course), but see extended time on skins and ferment naturally ala carbonic. Fascinating. Good drinking. Pale gold colour but blazes in glass. Scents of preserved lemon, honey and honeysuckle, toffee apples, ginger and lemongrass spice. You’d get ‘riesling’, if you were playing guessing games, but with a twist. Chewy and tacky-textured in the palate, almost powdery in feel, lemon barley water and bitter apples in flavour. It’s actually very refreshing too. Defined by its texture, is the take away, and the least eccentric of the Côtier wines. This drinks super well.