Critic Scores for Alea Riesling 2025:

• 94 – Erin Larkin, Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
• 94 – James Suckling
• 94 – Mike Bennie, Halliday Wine Companion
• 94 – Campbell Mattinson, The Wine Front
• 94 – Huon Hooke, The Real Review

Sourced from the distinct, biodynamically managed Rockwood Vineyard in Watervale, this sixteenth vintage of the Alea cuvée reflects Jeffrey Grosset's masterful control over natural acidity during a challenging, dry 2025 growing season. Planted on hard red rock and lean, orange-red loam soils, the vines yielded a wine that pours with a pale, almost water-like clarity in the glass.

The aromatics reveal a pretty, delicately layered perfume of green apple, rose petals, lychee, and fresh lemon blossom.

On the palate, a gentle touch of residual sugar provides an oily, glossy, and subtly rich mid-palate texture that rolls effortlessly into flavours of lime juice, grapefruit, and mandarin pulp.

Driven by an immaculate interplay of tight, natural acidity and fruit sweetness, the structure is incredibly seamless and light-to-medium-bodied. It handles its off-dry framework with such precision that the sweetness is completely integrated, driving a long, fine finish that registers as practically bone-dry.

Leading the critical praise, Erin Larkin of Robert Parker's Wine Advocate awarded the wine 94 points, celebrating how "the residual sugar barely registers, save for the sleekness of texture and the way it lingers through the finish."

Critic Score for Alea Riesling 2010:

• 94 – Huon Hooke, The Real Review

This inaugural off-dry bottling represents a masterful, lighter-styled expression of Clare Valley Riesling, captured beautifully in its youthful prime.

Exhibiting an exceptionally fine, pristine, and light-bodied profile on the palate, the wine balances its low alcohol and delicate posture with a striking, pure transparency that approaches a refreshing, spring-watery clarity.

Its aromatic profile is highly expressive, greeting the collector with a marvellous fragrance filled with delicate, refined floral notes and citrus-blossom characters, underpinned by a subtle hint of lemon pith. Mirroring the elegant equilibrium of a classic German halbtrocken or kabinett selection, the wine maintains great purity throughout, culminating in an effortlessly harmonious, highly drinkable finish.

Leading from Huon Hooke highlight its "Marvellous fragrance, floral and citrus-blossomy, delicate and refined." that showcases the variety's profound capacity for evolution.