Dry River’s wines come from pure natural science translated into emotion. Dr Richard Smart’s viticultural handbook ‘Sunlight into wine’ was the first ever technical vineyard manual I ever read and this philosophy is the mantra at Dry River. Dr Neil McCallum has always farmed for light not warmth and as a winegrowing pioneer in Martinborough has always pushed the limits of what was thought possible. The obsession with light is how the Dry River crew is able to make such perfectly balanced and fully ripe wines in entirely the wrong place. From McCallum’s foundation of the company to current winemaker Wilco Lam there has been a consistency of purpose and ever increasing quality.
As part of their search for light and quality Dry River don’t use conventional European vine training styles. Instead they do ruthless leaf-pulling on their Scott-Henry trellising and McCallum once listened to a visiting professor tell his students that of course this vineyard was dead and the grapes would never ripen. Now they are widely recognised as pioneers of quality and deep thinking. In fact theirs is the only tasting I`ve attended where there are essays from each of the team on their respectively winegrowing philosophies. (CW 17/07/19)