Smith Cullam is Frankland Estate's flagship Riesling, named for founders Barrie Smith and Judi Cullam, who established the estate in 1988; it is now run by their children Hunter and Elizabeth Smith. The fruit comes from the famous Isolation Ridge vineyard, planted in 1988 on organically farmed ironstone-gravel soils over clay in the Frankland River subregion of the Great Southern, Western Australia. The wine is only made in seasons deemed good enough. In 2023 the grapes were harvested a few days before the standard Isolation Ridge Riesling, at a ripeness chosen to deliver the searing intensity and length that define this off-dry style.

The hand-picked fruit was whole-bunch pressed. Fermentation was split according to what the season offered: for this vintage around 40% went into 500-litre oak for four to six weeks, with the remainder in stainless-steel tank. The ferment was arrested by chilling to leave a gentle off-dry balance, after which the wine spent about nine months on lees across both barrel and tank, building creamy, nougat-like texture. Just over a hundred dozen were made. The technique yields a Riesling of remarkable intensity and concentration, with lemon pith, mandarin, makrut lime, oyster shell and river-stone minerality, its sweetness rounded out and held in alignment by racy acidity.