Translation missing: en.New wines from Koerner + The 24' GG release from Dr Loosen + Dr Edge Tasting - Saturday 16th of May 3-6PM: New wines from Koerner + The 24' GG release from Dr Loosen + Dr Edge Tasting - Saturday 16th of May 3-6PM
Koerner
Koerner are one of the most exciting young Australian producers we work with. The family operation is run by Damon and Maddy out of vineyards in the Clare Valley and the Adelaide Hills, with Damon doing both the viticulture and the winemaking. The approach is straightforward: pick at the right moment, intervene as little as possible in the cellar, and let the site do the talking.
In the Clare Valley all the fruit comes off vines within a 750-metre radius, which gives Damon a parcel-level handle on each block he's working with. He places huge weight on picking date as the key to phenolic and acid ripeness, and the result is a range of wines that are fresh and energetic without sacrificing texture or complexity.
We tasted the full range with Damon in the shop a couple of weeks back and the wines are as good as we've ever seen them. Of the whites, the '25 'Watervale Riesling' is Damon's entry into his Clare Valley work, a taut, classic dry Clare Riesling at sharp pricing. The new '24 'Hills Chardonnay' is his entry-level Chardonnay from the Adelaide Hills and represents fantastic value, with everything you'd want from a crisp cool-climate Hills Chardonnay plus a subtle lick of French oak. The '23 'Rolle Vermentino' is the more textural white in the range, a savoury Corsican-styled Vermentino with real density and grip. The '24 'Pigato Vermentino' is the orange-wine bottling of the same grape, skin-contact and grippier still. The '23 'Tiver Rose' is a textural rosé with the same fresh-edged, structured Koerner stamp. Moving into the reds, the '25 'Light Red' is exactly what it says on the tin, a chillable light-bodied red built around freshness and drinkability. The new '24 'Hills Sangiovese' lands right in the Sangiovese sweet spot, all bright berry fruit and savoury spice. The '23 'Clare Red Blend' is the medium-weight Koerner red, while the '22 'Classic Red' steps up to the flagship traditional Clare blend, with the structure for bigger food. These wines continue to make a strong case that some of the most interesting work in Australian wine right now is happening away from the obvious varieties, so pick up your share before they're gone!
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Dr Loosen
Ernst Loosen has been running the Dr Loosen estate in the Mosel since 1988, and over those four decades has turned a 200-year family domaine into one of the most universally respected names in German Riesling. He inherited a winery already sitting on some of the most prized vineyard real estate in the Middle Mosel and has spent his career drawing the best out of those sites, joining the VDP (the country's quality-focused association of grower-producers) in 1993 and steadily building Loosen into a benchmark for what dry and off-dry Mosel Riesling can be.
The Mosel is a cool climate region of steep south-facing slopes rising up from the river, and Loosen's holdings are concentrated in the heart of the Middle Mosel on some of the most highly classified Grosse Lage sites in the appellation. The slate rich soils warm during the day and hold heat through the cool nights, the long growing season lets the fruit reach full ripeness without losing acid, and many of his vines were never pulled out for phylloxera and remain on their original ungrafted root stocks, some of them over 130 years of age. The combination produces wines with remarkable concentration and terroir transparency.
Three of Dr Loosen's flagship Grosses Gewächs (GG) Rieslings have just landed from the 2024 vintage. The GG label is the VDP's top-tier designation, used for dry single-variety wines from Germany's officially classified Grosse Lage sites, the closest local equivalent to a Burgundy Grand Cru. The '24 'Wehlener Sonnenuhr' comes from one of the most beautiful and steepest vineyards in the entire Mosel, with rocky free-draining blue slate giving a fine, fresh, delicately finessed style. The '24 'Erdener Treppchen' is from another extremely steep site but on iron-rich red slate, a more powerful style with racy fruit, full flavour and intense mineral grip. We also have a few of the '23 'Erdener Treppchen' left from the prior release for those who want to taste two consecutive vintages of the same site side by side. Finally, the '24 'Urziger Wurzgarten' is sourced from a natural amphitheatre of red volcanic sandstone, giving a wine with greater depth and weight, exotic spiced fruit and real lift on the finish. These are spectacular expressions of dry Riesling at very sharp pricing for GG bottlings, drinking beautifully young but built to age for decades. Don't sleep on these!
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Dr Edge Tasting
Saturday 16th
3pm - 6pm
Join us this Saturday for a tasting of the exciting cool-climate wines of Dr Edge - the personal project of Tasmanian winemaker Peter Dredge.
Peter is one of the most thoughtful producers working in this country at the moment, although as a winemaker he came into the trade entirely by accident. At 17 he was on the sidelines of a high school track event when a stray discus caught him in the side of the head, leaving him deaf in his left ear and ending what had been a promising sporting career. When he was ready to work again he took a gap year and ended up doing a harvest at Petaluma in the Adelaide Hills under the legendary Brian Croser, which is where the winemaking thing first caught. He spent years at Petaluma specialising in whites and sparkling, took a 2005 sabbatical through Germany (a vintage with Dr Loosen), Hungary, Italy and France focused on Riesling and Pinot, then made the call that even the Adelaide Hills weren't quite cool enough for the kind of wines he wanted to make.
Tasmania was the answer. He spent nearly seven years there as Senior Winemaker for Bay of Fires and House of Arras, sourcing fruit from growers right across the length of the island and building up a deep understanding of Tasmanian terroir that very few winemakers have. In 2015 he and his partner moved to Hobart and Peter started his own label under the nickname his Petaluma mates had given him back in the late '90s, Dr Edge. The portfolio is built as a compass of single vineyard wines from the north, east and south of Tassie plus blended cuvees drawn from sites all over the state, with much of the fruit coming from the historic Meadowbank vineyard where Peter also moonlights as winemaker.
The cellar approach is unashamedly soft handed, fresh, light, textured. Fermentations run on native yeasts with minimal sulphur additions, oak influence is dialled right back, and the cellar work stays as light as Peter can get away with. The wines themselves track the breadth of Tasmanian terroir: traditional-method sparkling in both vintage and non-vintage formats, taut and linear Rieslings, textural rosés, and Pinot Noirs built around freshness and clarity of fruit rather than weight or extraction.
These are the wines that we'll be pouring on the day:
Dr Edge Blanc de Noir Vintage 2020
Dr Edge Sparkling Brut Nature NV
Dr Edge Riesling 2025
Dr Edge Ambrosia 2025
Dr Edge Rosa Rosa Rosa Rosé 2025
Dr Edge 'Pinot Rain' Pinot Noir 2025
See you there!