2025 Ashli Rose Riesling $36

04/10/2026

Ashli Rose is a recent addition to the Tasmanian wine scene and is the passion project of Ashli Rose Mani and her partner-in-life, Mark Carter. New Zealand-trained, Mani spent her formative years among vines and wines at her family's Iron Pot Bay Vineyard at Rowella, on the West Tamar.

Julieanne and Ashok Mani bought the 5ha property from vineyard founder Rod Cuthbert in mid-2013.

Riesling almost seems like putty in Mani's hands. She won gold with her 2023 release at the 2024 Tasmanian Wine Show, along with a four-star rating at the Winewise Championship, held the same year in Canberra. This current release won gold at the 2026 Tasmanian Wine Show, and was included in the event's taste-off for the Cool Wine Trophy for Best Riesling.

The wine was sourced from Riesling planted at Iron Pot Bay not long after the family took ownership. The variety is a superb performer in the Tamar Valley, thanks largely to the district's cool maritime climate. It encourages prolonged ripening and accumulation of great aroma and flavour intensity. Vintage 2025 produced bountiful crops right across the State, but that hasn't diminished the quality and sheer drinkability of this wine in any way.

There's a lively spicy element supporting all that vibrant citrus and white flower fruit. There's also a subtle hint of that yellow greengage plum character you see in some Rieslings from Austria's Wachau Valley. Indeed, the overall effect here borders on Euro-centric. It's not just straight-up-and-down 'lemons and limes' you encounter in Riesling from South Australia's Eden Valley, or warmer years in the Coal River Valley.

The downside is that too few people take Riesling into account when they're choosing their bottle of white. Riesling's stocks nationally have plummeted over recent decades. The noble German variety was top of the heap in the 1970s.

Wine Australia's 2025 vintage report shows that it now ranks eighth in the white variety pecking-order, with Colombard and Prosecco at sixth and seventh. Volume fell by 5 percent when compared with 2024.

Riesling's share of the total white grape crush nationally? A miserable one percent.

This is no museum piece. Spread the love.

Source: Media sample