Jim Barry Watervale Riesling / 2025 / 750mL

The Jim Barry Watervale Riesling 2025 is a dry, unwooded white from the Watervale sub-region of the Clare Valley in South Australia, built on lime and mineral drive rather than richness. It is pale, tightly wound and unmistakably Clare in style.

Cut lime and lemon zest lead the aroma, with white peach, green apple skin and a lift of white blossom sitting behind. There's a faint talc-and-wet-stone character that grows in the glass as the wine warms slightly.

The palate is lean and fast-moving, carrying citrus pith and honeydew across a firm acid line. Texture comes from that chalky grip through the middle rather than from any softness, and the finish is dry, long and faintly bitter in the way good Riesling should be, closing on fresh lime juice.

Serve it properly cold with Sydney rock oysters, salt and pepper squid, or a bowl of green papaya salad. It also holds its own against Vietnamese chicken with plenty of coriander and chilli, and it's a sound match for a simple whole snapper off the barbecue.

Drinking well from release and through the next three to four years while the citrus is at its most primary, though the acidity here is more than capable of carrying the wine a decade or more, when toast and honey characters take over from the fruit.