2024 Jim Barry The Florita Riesling Half Bottle 375ml, Clare Valley

This product is a half bottle size 375ml

A stupendous riesling of immense regional character and yet flair, personality and precision as calling cards. Pretty lavender and chamomile floral lift, sleek and racy lime juice characters spiked with lemongrass, gingery spice, pepper and some wet slate minerality with accompanying textural grip. Finesse personified with energy to burn. Vivid, scintillating riesling. Drink 2025 to 2040.

96 points Mike Bennie for Halliday Wine Companion, Special Value, March 2025

Finely constructed with such purity and complexity, showing aromas of kaffir limes, struck match, white flowers, lemon peel and slate. The palate has very high energy and tension with a driving acidity and powerful undertone that will unravel for years to come. Made from vines planted on limestone in 1962, bringing a chalky aspect to the wine. Excellent. Drink or hold. 

96 points James Suckling, April 2025

Pale, water-white colour, very restrained nose, some lime pith aromas, the palate piercingly fresh and crisp with driving acidity and a long, energetic finish. Lip-smacking lemony flavours. This is backward, high-tensile and promises to take some age well. Superb riesling. Drink 2025 to 2039.

95 points Huon Hooke for The Real Review, December 2024

The 2024 Riesling The Florita is taut and punchy with its embryonic aromas of lime leaf, preserved lemon and lemon thyme. This has impressive density of flavor, with a compact core of intense citrus flavors elevated by lacy grip over a long, sinewy finish. Beautifully composed for the long haul. Drink 2026 to 2038.

95 points Angus Hughson for Vinous, August 2025

The 2024 The Florita Riesling is tense and tightly coiled, with lemon zest, beeswax, green apple, cheesecloth, white pepper and shaved fennel. I find this to be quite a compact and savory iteration of the Florita, far less floral and talc-like than other years. I am looking to the acid drive and the phenolic presence for direction here, and both suggest that patience may be rewarded. Drink 2028 to 2039.

94 Points Erin Larkin for The Wine Advocate, March 2025

Jim Barry was the first qualified winemaker in the Clare Valley, and the business he founded in 1959 has remained in family hands for three generations. The Florita is the family's flagship Riesling: a micro-batch wine drawn from individual rows of the historic Florita vineyard in Watervale, fifteen kilometres south of Clare.

The vineyard's story stretches back to 1946, when it was planted to Palomino for Fino Sherry production, before being replanted to Riesling in 1962. It was here that legendary winemaker John Vickery sourced the fruit for his celebrated Leo Buring Watervale Rieslings of the 1960s and 1970s, wines that defined Clare Valley Riesling for a generation. The Barry family purchased the 80-acre property in 1986, and after nearly two decades of patience, launched The Florita Riesling in 2004.

The best fruit comes from shallow loamy soils over deep limestone. Grapes are hand-harvested in the cool of the night, destemmed without crushing, and pressed to retain primarily free-run juice. Cold fermentation in stainless steel preserves fruit purity, vineyard character and natural acidity. The wine has been sealed with a screwcap from the outset, protecting every vintage through decades of development. Over fifty percent of production is held back for release at between seven and twenty years of age.

The 2024 is a wine of immediate allure and considerable promise. Lifted and aromatic from the first pour — spring blossom, white flowers and citrus pith on the nose, with kaffir lime, struck match and a flinty, dry mineral quality threading through. The palate is finely constructed and precise, with purity and seamless integration that speaks of both the vineyard and the season. Focused and driven, with a long, clean finish that leaves a lasting impression. Those who drink it now will be rewarded; those who wait will be rewarded more.

Drink from 2026 through to 2040.