Skillogalee, a small but award winning boutique winery run by a father and son team in Southern Australia, takes its name from a somewhat unusual source.
When the pioneer and explorer John Horrocks and his party, having suffered illness, injury and bad weather, ran short of provisions while looking for land suitable for settlement in the early 1840s, things were looking grim. However, they managed to survive by making a “skillogalee” or “skilly”, a sort of thin porridge or gruel (in this case probably made from grass seeds and water). The word itself Celtic in origin, the dish was commonly fed to prisoners in Ireland around this time.
Not the most appetising thing to name a vineyard after, perhaps? Worry not, though, for the vineyard actually takes its name from the creek which runs through the eastern, lower end of Australia’s Clare Valley where the winery is located; when Horrocks finally made it back to his home settlement of Penwortham (named after his home town in England), he gave the nearby creek the name Skillogalee in memory of his party’s struggle.
Much unlike the vineyard’s namesake, Skillogalee’s Riesling - which they have been making since 1987 – is delicious, intensely aromatic and lightly floral but with a rapier-sharp citrus punch. Ideal with shellfish (especially crab), it will mellow gracefully over several years if left to do so, bringing to the fore the hints of honey and toast so typical of aged Riesling. The grapes are hand picked from steep vineyards around 500 metres above sea level before being carefully blended into the finished product.
Skillogalee’s Riesling is “pound for pound” the best we’ve ever tried from Australia, and well worth the five stars awarded to it by the experts at Decanter magazine.
