2020 Capel Vale Riesling Single Vineyard Whispering Hill Mount Barker 750 ml

If you look at the wine lists of the best restaurants in Melbourne and Sydney—names like Attica and Bennelong—you won't recognize the names of too many Australian wineries. That's because domestic demand for the best boutique bottles is FIERCE, and many never escape their home country.

To get the most coveted allocations of those wines, we're fighting not only every ambitious Aussie restaurateur, but also top spots in Singapore, Hong Kong, and the UK—and of course here in the US, as well.

So it took a minor miracle to procure the 2020 Capel Vale Riesling Single Vineyard Whispering Hill Mount Barker, one of the most coveted bottles from Australia, from a producer etched into Australian wine history.

Bracingly dry, luxurious, and ageworthy, this bottling boasts a stunning 96-point score from Halliday Wine Companion, who exclaimed “What a wine!” This is a world-class Riesling bearing an out-of-this-world quality-to-price ratio.

Capel Vale is a pioneer not just of Margaret River, but of Riesling in Australia. In 1986, their Riesling was named Australian National Dry White Champion, and today those same vines are producing even lower yields that translate to more concentration and expressive flavor.

This wine delivers an aromatic tapestry of white flowers, white peaches, fresh herbs, yellow apples, and classic Riesling notes of petrol. It’s juicy and crisp on the palate, with rich flavors of lime blossoms, apricots, and honeysuckle. It will age for over a decade, and it’s an ideal foil for a course of sweet, silky, Hokkaido uni nigiri. Perfection.