2025 Atlas Wines 172° Watervale Riesling | 95+ Points Halliday

🔥 95+ Point Old-Vine Watervale Riesling | Absolutely Ridiculous Value at $32

Old vines. Dry grown. Hand picked. Single vineyard. Watervale. $32.

If you love Clare Valley Riesling, this is exactly the sort of wine you should be buying by the six-pack.

95+ Points – Halliday Wine Companion

Single-Vineyard Watervale Riesling | Purity, Minerality & Extraordinary Value

Classic Watervale Riesling turned up another notch — lime, florals, talc and flint with incredible purity, razor-sharp acidity and serious length.

The 2025 Atlas Wines 172° Watervale Riesling is made from hand-picked fruit from old, dry-grown vines in Watervale and represents the pinnacle of Atlas's Riesling production.

And your price?

$32.

That's where this gets seriously interesting.

Atlas itself currently lists the 172° at $40, while Halliday also recorded a $40 tasting price for the 2025 vintage.

At $32, this is outstanding buying.

172° – The Top Riesling at Atlas

This isn't the regular Atlas Watervale Riesling.

172° sits at the top.

Atlas describes the wine as coming from old, dry-grown vines in Watervale, with the single-vineyard bottling representing:

“the pinnacle of our Riesling production.”

That's an important distinction.

The regular 2025 Atlas Watervale Riesling is already a very good expression of the region.

172° is the serious one.

More concentration.

More precision.

More mineral drive.

More intensity.

And greater potential in the cellar.

Watervale – One of Australia's Great Riesling Terroirs

If you wanted to choose one place in Australia synonymous with great Riesling, Watervale would have to be near the top of the list.

This is classic Clare Valley Riesling country.

The broader Atlas Watervale vineyards feature the region's characteristic terra rossa soils over limestone, and Atlas specifically highlights Watervale's long reputation for producing some of Australia's most distinctive Rieslings.

The resulting wines can deliver that unmistakable combination of:

Lemon

Lime

Florals

Lemongrass

Green Apple

Flint

Talc

Driving natural acidity

And that's exactly the territory we're in here.

Tasting Notes

Appearance: Very pale straw with brilliant green highlights — youthful, bright and incredibly fresh.

Aroma: Beautifully lifted and precise. Fresh lime juice and lemon lead immediately, followed by lemongrass, delicate florals, green apple and talc, with subtle flinty notes underneath.

Palate: Concentrated yet wonderfully light on its feet. Citrus and lemongrass dominate, with baked apple adding another layer before the wine's fine natural acidity takes control.

Texture: Fine, taut and beautifully focused. There's real concentration here, but everything is driven by freshness rather than weight.

Finish: Long, mineral and persistent, with citrus, florals, flint and beautifully fine acidity carrying right through the wine.

This is classic Watervale Riesling.

But with another level of intensity.

95+ Points – Halliday Wine Companion

The 2025 has received:

95+ POINTS

from Halliday Wine Companion.

Halliday's database confirms the 2025 172° as a current release, tasted on 3 July 2026, with a tasting price of $40 and just 11.5% alcohol recorded in its review data.

That's the sort of score that puts this firmly into serious Riesling territory.

And yet we're selling it for:

$32.

Old Vines + Dry Grown

This is one of the reasons I'm particularly interested in this wine.

The fruit is sourced from:

Old vines

that are:

Dry grown

and:

Hand picked.

That's a pretty serious starting point for a $32 bottle of wine.

Dry-grown old vines can deliver concentration and intensity without necessarily producing excessive weight — exactly what you want in serious Riesling.

And the 172° captures that beautifully.

Concentrated flavour without sacrificing delicacy.

Keep the Winemaking Out of the Way

Riesling doesn't need winemaking tricks.

When you've got fruit like this, you protect it.

For the 172°, Atlas chills and gently presses the hand-picked fruit under reductive conditions. The free-run juice is settled at low temperature before fermentation with cultured yeast.

Fermentation proceeds to:

Complete Dryness

before the wine is stabilised, filtered and bottled early to preserve its vineyard freshness and purity.

That's exactly what I want.

No oak.

No unnecessary complication.

Just:

Riesling + Watervale + Vineyard.

2025 – A Vintage Made for Riesling

Atlas describes 2025 as providing excellent conditions for Riesling, with warm days and cool nights helping the fruit achieve full flavour while retaining vibrant acidity and lifted aromatics.

That balance is critical.

Because great Clare Riesling isn't simply about acidity.

You need fruit.

You need intensity.

You need perfume.

And then you need the acidity to pull everything together.

The 172° has all of it.

Just 12% Alcohol

Another thing I love?

12% alcohol.

This is why great Riesling is so ridiculously drinkable.

You can have enormous flavour intensity without alcohol or heaviness.

It's refreshing.

It's precise.

It's mouthwatering.

And one glass very quickly becomes another.

Drink It Now – Or Put It Away

Atlas describes the 172° as having both the freshness to be delicious young and enough power to age gracefully for an extended period.

That's one of the great joys of Clare Valley Riesling.

Right now?

You'll get:

Lime

Lemon

Green apple

Florals

Talc

Flint

Give it time and those flavours can evolve toward:

Toast

Honey

Lemon curd

Preserved citrus

Lanolin

while retaining that brilliant line of acidity.

At $32?

Buy six and do both.

Food Pairings

• Fresh oysters
• Kingfish sashimi
• Spencer Gulf prawns
• Salt and pepper squid
• Vietnamese salads
• Thai seafood
• Grilled whiting
• Sushi
• Pork dumplings
• Goat's cheese

But on a warm afternoon?

An ice bucket and a glass will do just fine.

Why We Love It

This ticks virtually every box I want from Australian Riesling.

You're getting:

100% Riesling

Watervale, Clare Valley

Old vines

Dry grown

Hand picked

Single vineyard

Fermented completely dry

Fine natural acidity

Just 12% alcohol

95+ Points – Halliday Wine Companion

And then there's the price.

Atlas's listed price:

$40

Your price:

$32.

That's 20% below the winery's current listed price.

For an old-vine, dry-grown, hand-picked, single-vineyard Watervale Riesling with 95+ Halliday points, that is phenomenal value.

This is exactly why Australia remains one of the greatest places in the world to buy Riesling.

You simply shouldn't be able to buy wine of this pedigree for thirty-two dollars.

Pure. Limey. Flinty. Electric. Seriously long.

The 2025 Atlas Wines 172° Watervale Riesling is everything great Clare Valley Riesling should be — beautifully aromatic, intensely flavoured, bone dry, mineral and driven by brilliant natural acidity.

95+ Halliday. Old Vines. Dry Grown. Hand Picked. Watervale. $32.

👉 At this price, don't buy one. Buy six — drink a couple young for that explosive citrus purity and put the rest away to see just how beautifully great Watervale Riesling can age.