2025 Stoney Rise Savagnin, Tasmania

Delicious was my first thought. It’s nutty and saline to begin with, in keeping with some classical tones. Cashew and macadamia work nicely with sea salt before the fruit starts to present itself in green apple, lime skin and pear. There are some delicate ginger, smoke and leesy tones that dance around the edges. The palate is lovely, fresh and vibrant with ample texture and intensity. Lime, green apple flesh and skin, and pear drop make way for salted lemon segments and similar nutty tones. The acid is incredibly saline, sprawling across the palate with briny assertion and vim, giving a pithy cut through a finish of good length. Bitter citrus preserve notes permeate the finish. This is such a smart expression of Savagnin. Multi-dimensional, taut and tensile, structured and long. A big yes from me.

94 points Tom Kline for Wine Pilot, March 2026

Cracker! Briny, lipsmacking and distinctive drinking, with crisp apple, pear and citrus fruits, grilled nuts, margarita salt, chamomile, crème fraîche, clover blossom and sea breeze. It's flighty and febrile with a light pithy texture, a lick of umami, a bright mineral cadence and an ache on the exit, like letting a flake of sea salt slowly dissolve on the tongue. Such great drinking. Drink to 2031.

94 points Dave Brookes for Halliday Wine Companion, February 2026

Savagnin is a variety that I think looks so good in Australia but has an amusing and checkered past. It looks something like this: producers in Australian were planting what they believed to be Albariño, however in 2008, the CSIRO (Australia's leading scientific research institute) conducted DNA testing that revealed the variety so widely planted and favored was in fact Savagnin Blanc. It was thriving in the warm and dry conditions that proliferate here, and it wasn't until later that true Albarino was planted. So, this 2025 Savagnin is rich and exotic and leads with notes of straw, lemon oil, white peach and green olive brine. The acidity is tight and salty and is an attractive counterweight to the rich fruit. Drink to 2035.

92 points Erin Larkin for The Wine Advocate, December 2025

Stoney Rise is the family-run winery of Joe and Lou Holyman. Established in 2004, it is centred around a vineyard in northern Tasmania originally planted in 1986. The low-lying site is located north of Launceston and less than a kilometre from the banks of the Tamar River. Pinot Noir is their principal variety, and the total area under vine sits at 7.4 hectares with a density of 4,500 vines per hectare.