2017 Riesling The Florita
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Tasting notes
Tasted at the Armagh Hut with Sam and Tom Barry, the 2017 The Florita Rieslingis tight, taut and saline—it is mineral and tense, almost shale-y in its acid profile. It is powerful and driven and blisteringly good. Really good. It is yet to unfurl and offers notes of preserved lemon and lavender—is there turmeric and lanolin in there too? Boom. This is really good. Drink it now or in decades to come—it’s a sleeper. 2017 was a cooler, wetter year and higher yielding.
Critic scores
Average Score
Jancis Robinson MW
Tamlyn Currin, jancisrobinson.com
More reviews and scores
Limpid straw-yellow. Sharply defined citrus fruit and floral scents display a chalky mineral topnote and a suggestion of quinine. Chewy and tightly wound in the mouth, offering intense lime and grapefruit pith, pear skin and melon flavors and a touch of succulent herbs. The mineral note returns on the penetrating finish, which lingers with strong tenacity.
Full bottle 1,263 g. Screwcap. Sam’s dad bought the vineyard in 1986. Originally the vineyard was planted to Palomina. In 1962 they replanted to Riesling – so the vines are all own-rooted and old. They use a clay-based contact spray ‘sunscreen’ to create a kind of sunblock from the harsh afternoon sun, keep canopy cooler and extend hangtime. pH 2.95. Under screwcap, says Sam Barry, the potential to age is almost limitless. ‘When they’re young they’re very delicate and quite simple wines, but when they age, they develop toasty characters as opposed to TDN. The residual sugar is around 1.8 to 2.2 g/l, and it has about 7 g/l acid but it’s all tartaric, so if the residual sugar was any higher it would really stick. Where you have more malic acid, which absorbs sugar, you can have the wine a bit sweeter. 7 g RS in Florita would be out of balance.’ Smoky, crushed nuts. Taut, dry, salty, lime pickle, tamarind. This is a skinny marathon runner, every sinew, every highly trained muscle visibly etched, skin white-tight to the bone. Stringently stern and disciplined. I really wouldn’t hurry to drink this. If you like your Rieslings jaw-clenchingly dry, if you like sucking on cordite and raw limes and you’re into sackcloth and ash, then go for it. I like boniness; I love lots of acid and structure; I admire austerity – but tasted next to the Hugels, Loosens and Ste Michelles, I found it just a little too puritanical. It obviously needs to be tucked away for a few years and given a chance to develop some tertiaries and perhaps it needs someone with a greater appreciation for fleshless aesthetics. So strict you could drink yourself sober with this wine… (TC)
Very tight and linear. A real spear of steeliness. Tight and sandy-textured. Lots of acidity at this point. (JR)
About the producer
Jim Barry is one of Australia’s legendary wine estates. Based in the Clare Valley, Barry was the region’s first qualified winemaker and pioneer of the valley, which has since become a benchmark region for Riesling, as well as being home to some of the world's finest Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz.