Frederick Stevenson Skin Contact Riesling Clare Valley 2020

Frederick Stevenson is the winemaking alias of Steve Crawford. He started the project as an antidote to the industrial scale and trophy winemaking that he felt had overwhelmed the Aussie wine scene. Traveling around Europe, Steve was inspired by the fresh drinkable wines and the merger of wine into daily life. When he returned home he decided that he wanted to show an elegant side to south Australian wines, and prove that structure and balance can be achieved without the addition of acid, tannin, enzymes and new oak. Working out of a small warehouse in Adelaide Steve focuses on texture, interest and creativity.

The vineyards are by far the most important part of his production tending to focus on tannin and acid, and he will pick according to this. Steve always felt “weirdly anxious” about recipe winemaking in Australia, so instead he has taken a low intervention approach in the winery, varying what he does depending on the vintage. He adds a small amount of sulphur to the wine just prior to bottling – to eliminate bottle variation and protect the wines from exposure to oxygen on its first racking. Steve has an unabashed love of Clare Valley Riesling, demonstrated in a slightly different way.

Clare is known forits bone-dry, limey Rieslings with weight but rarely textural. Steve has taken Clare Rieslingto a disco, got it a little tipsy, and then took off for the moon together. This is out of thisworld and not of this world in many respects. The slow, oxidative handling with wildfermentation, a little phenolics and loads of solids is something Steve learned while working in the Rheinhessen. Has the texture in this wine been mentioned yet? TEXTURE!