He has been called Australia’s ‘King of Riesling’. Jeffrey Grosset was 15 when his father (an electrician) came home with a bottle of wine and shared it with his family. It was Riesling, and Jeffrey was gobsmacked. On his 16th birthday he enrolled at Roseworthy Agricultural College to study agriculture and oenology. He went on to work in both Australia and Germany, and became a senior winemaker in a large operation by the age of 26. But he wanted to do his own thing, and in 1981 founded Grosset Wines.

Production at Grosset is tiny, with the focus is on single vineyard sites from the high country in the Clare Valley. The combination of a continental climate and elevation make for warm summer days followed by cool and even cold nights, ideal conditions for making great Riesling. From the beginning, Grosset researched, laid out and nurtured their own vineyards. Springvale is an isolated, high-altitude site with thin soils laid over a slate bedrock. On Polish Hill, silty soils lie over gravel and then slate. Vines struggle here, and the bunches and grapes are small and concentrated. Vineyard management is biodynamic; winemaking is slow and gentle. (NT 05/12/23)