One winemaker, working out of the Clare Valley, did more than anyone to shape the bone-dry, lime-scented Riesling style Australia now exports to the world.
Every great wine style has its pioneers. For Australian Riesling, the towering figure is John Vickery - a quietly brilliant Clare Valley winemaker whose work over more than half a century set the template the whole country now follows.
A career of precision
Vickery began making Riesling for Leo Buring in 1955, and much of his celebrated career was spent crafting benchmark dry Rieslings from the great Clare Valley and Eden Valley vineyards. At a time when Australian whites were often sweetish and short-lived, he pursued something different: bone-dry, technically immaculate Riesling built to age for decades.
His wines won show trophy after trophy and, more importantly, proved that Australia could make Riesling to rival the great wines of Germany and Alsace - in its own distinctive, lime-and-mineral style. A generation of winemakers learned from his example.
The Clare and Eden connection
Vickery's name is bound up with two regions: the Clare Valley and the Eden Valley, the two cool, elevated areas that produce Australia's finest Riesling. His mastery lay in understanding how their slate and limestone soils, cold nights and old vines translated into the glass.
Today, the Vickery Wines label carries his legacy forward, made in partnership with a new generation but built on the principles he established: dry, precise, age-worthy Riesling from the best Watervale and Eden Valley fruit.
Why it matters to visitors
For anyone tasting their way through the Clare Valley, understanding Vickery's influence adds depth to every glass. The bone-dry style you'll find at cellar door after cellar door - from Grosset to Mount Horrocks to Pikes - owes a debt to the man who proved it could be done. Raise a glass of cold, lime-scented Riesling and you're toasting his legacy.
