2025 Stargazer Riesling, Coal River Valley

The 2025 Riesling is tightly coiled and composed, fresh and floral. Where the Palisander is texturally complex and weighty in its delivery of powerful fruit and focused acidity, this presents an altogether more feathery experience, one that tends to dance across the palate, rather than march. Here, we have lime flesh, lemon curd, white flowers and crushed rocks. It may not be as complex as the Palisander nor as layered, but I find it to be irresistibly detailed, fresh and pleasurable. It's a matter of choosing your preference, really. It's an excellent wine. Drink to 2036.

95 points Erin Larkin for The Wine Advocate, March 2026

Pale straw, bright and lively in the glass. Lifted aromas of lime leaf, lemon pith, bath salts, white flowers and wet slate. Pithy, textured crunchy and focused, with a pure drive of juicy citrus, just-ripe nectarine and perky acidity. Textured and long. Drink to 2036.

95 points Aaron Brasher for The Real Review, January 2026

A fragrant and wonderfully perfumed Coal River Valley riesling that shows characters of green apple, grapefruit, yuzu, lime, apple blossom, mineral salts, clover and crushed stone. There are little crushed mountain herb notes that join in on the palate, with a fine, lacy mineral driveline and a swell of green apple, citrus and stone on the back end. Drink to 2035.

93 points Dave Brookes for Halliday Wine Companion, October 2025

The 2025 Riesling includes fruit from all three blocks of Riesling in the Stargazer Palisander vineyard in the Tea Tree area of the Coal River Valley, planted in succession from 2004 2021 to clones GM239 and GM198. The blend also includes fruit from a vineyard in the Campania area of Coal River Valley, planted in 2015 to clones D2V2 and D2V3. Both vineyards are primarily on brown on Jurassic dolerite.

The season was warm and dry, providing good fruit flavours and ad yields. The grapes were harvested in across a two-week period in mid-April, destemmed and left in contact with skins for approximately eight hours prior to gentle pressing. All parcels were slow fermented over six weeks with indigenous yeasts in stainless steel. All ferments were arrested by mid-June and left on lees until blending and bottling in the beginning of August.

The bottled wine has 6.7g/L residual (natural) sugar to balance off its high natural acidity.

About this producer

Stargazer pays tribute to Abel Tasman, the Dutchman who is believed to be the first European to sight Tasmania and the South Island of New Zealand in 1642. Founder and winemaker Sam Connew is a born and bred South Islander who fell in love with Tasmania after fifteen years of vintages across the globe. Her Palisander Vineyard in the upper reaches of Coal River in Lutruwita/Tasmania was planted by its original owners in 2002 to Riesling and Pinot Noir and expanded in 2017 by Sam with more of the same (but increasing clone numbers) and four clones of Chardonnay. Pinots Blanc and Gris followed in 2021, along with Gamay and Gewürztraminer.

The property sits on brown dermosol soil over Jurassic dolerite and is particularly high in calcium associated with thicker skins and slower ripening. Sam believes in the strength of biodiversity and regenerative agriculture and uses sheep and chickens for manure distribution and weed and bug control. Bees and other insects are essential for vine pollination too, and Sam has planted over 1000 local plants on the property since 2020 to provide them with food around the year.