Description
Released alongside The Armagh 2017 is The Florita Riesling 2019. The Florita vineyard at Watervale is one of the oldest in the Clare Valley. This is the vineyard where legendary winemaker, John Vickery, sourced the grapes for his great Leo Buring Rieslings of the 1960s and 1970s and the vineyard has faced the same challenges as the Armagh. At a time when the South Australian Government had initiated a vine pull program to counter an oversupply of grapes and the industry was in a state of turmoil, Jim’s sons, Mark, Peter and John went against conventional wisdom and purchased the Florita vineyard in 1986. Despite fruit being in oversupply and Riesling being overshadowed by a huge surge in popularity by Chardonnay, they knew that Florita was one of the best vineyards in the country with its unique soil of loamy clay over limestone and was crucial in their plans to produce premium Rieslings.
95/100 points – James Halliday: “No frills winemaking simply because none was needed, the great vineyard and significant vine age give the wine an extra volume of citrus and Granny Smith apple flavour. The acidity is especially good for the vintage. A classic.”
95/100 points – The Real Review: “Pale yellow colour in the glass. A savoury tease within an otherwise citrus-driven nose; wild honey ahead of classic lemon rind and lime flesh. A faint bitterness ot this – tonic water with a slice of lemon. Tense and focused when sipped, bath salts and lemon flesh, intense and driven, the citrus rind note returns to afford it a bitter complexity on the finish. While the vintage has robbed it a little, it's a sensational riesling of immense class.”
