Loosen Barry Wolta Wolta Riesling 2023

Why is this Wine so Yummy?

About Loosen Barry

A unique collaboration, a meeting of minds, a shared obsession.

A long, deeply valued and occasionally dangerous friendship between the Mosel’s Ernst Loosen and the Barry Family of Clare has delivered a collaboration unlike anything seen before.

Its tendrils cross continents but its roots tap into a single source – a love of Riesling that has driven and defined them.

The collaboration is best described as an attempt to answer these questions:

How does the Mosel mind apply itself to a special site in Clare?

And what do South Australian eyes see when they gaze up at the Mosel’s steep slopes?

The answers lie in two pretty unique wines.

The Jim Barry wine is called ‘Wolta Wolta’, recognising the original name of the grazing farm Jim Barry bought in February 1977, that we now know as Lodge Hill.

Leading up to the 2017 harvest, Erni selected the south-facing Block 18 on Lodge Hill and suggested it be left to hang a couple of weeks longer than the rest of the vineyard.

The wine was fermented wild in a seasoned 7-year-old Fuder Erni selected and shipped from the oak programme he uses for his ‘GG Reserve’ wines.

It spent 12 months in that oak on full lees at 10 degrees Celsius, and another 11 months in stainless steel on fine lees before bottling.

In more than a 150 years, Clare’s never made a Riesling like this.

It’s a wine that exists in a class all of its own – GGDU – Grosses Gewächs Down Under.

The same could be said, just with an even greater timeframe, for the German part of this project, a heroic wine called “Walhalla.’

While the Barrys were applying Germanic thinking in Clare, the team at Dr Loosen took a parcel of fruit from the red, slatey soils of Erdner Treppchen and gave it the Clare Valley treatment.

Fermentation driven by selected yeast and conducted in stainless steel. Less than 4 grams of residual sugar and acidity around 8 grams.

The one variation on the Clare template being a 24-month maturation before bottling, but that also took place in stainless steel.

Over time, the focus has honed in on the Clare Valley, where the collaboration has taken root. Wolta Wolta is a deep, ageworthy Riesling fermented wild in foudre and aged long on lees. It’s now joined by Slate Hill, a pure, thirst-quenching Riesling from younger vines that speaks to Clare’s bright future. Fueled by camaraderie, curiosity and a shared love of Riesling, LoosenBarry is more than a partnership—it’s a friendship told through two remarkable Australian wines.

🎥 Watch Tom, Sam & Erni Loosen look back on 10 years of the Loosen Barry Collaboration. It’s age gated so click on the image to watch on YouTube.

In the Vineyard

In the Winery

Every winemaker wants to make delicious wine, to push the boundaries, time is both our enemy and asset. Time taken to establish and understand vineyards, and only 1 shot each year to pick grapes and experiment slows our progress. On the flip side patience during the making and aging of great wines can give us unrivalled pleasure!

Playing in an agricultural industry subject to the laws of nature is one of the most challenging crafts to ply.

When it comes to winemaking it’s all about options through every step of the process. Those options are only limited by knowledge and imagination. The Barry’s drive to advance Australian Riesling is a demonstration of the dedication required to be students of wine history, current practices, and thoughts for the future at a global level.

Highlighted by their key role in setting up and running of Riesling Down Under that brought Riesling makers from around the world together to share their knowledge of growing and making Riesling and their collaboration with Ernie Loosen.

The financial pressure on the global wine industry often creates a barrier to establishing the base of knowledge needed to add context to winemaking decisions, it’s not cheap to travel the world and dedicate time to understand the growing and making of makers of delicious wine, or indeed to run a divers tasting program to see the results of their approach in the glass.

The Barry’s dedicate considerable resource to learning and experimenting.

I speak with Sam and less so Tom on this subject. It’s always refreshing to hear what’s happening and coming down the pipeline.

The push for both longer élévage pre-bottling in a variety of vessels for Riesling and dedication to establishing a cellar of greater than 1 million bottles of museum stock examples of this.

As with all things wine simple questions often require a book to be answered with real meaning. There is much more than these examples of winemaking occuring.

At the end of the day the most important thing to know is that we get rewarded in the glass with Rieslings that are being made with the a simple goal in mind: make a liquid of beauty that sates thirst.

The 2023 Vintage at Loosen Barry

Sam called 2023 a 1:20 year. A cool year with significant diurnal shift allowing for a longer hang time. The year had a solid crop, remembering that a big crop is at most 4t/a, not at all excessive, yet, allowing for the longer hang time. The preceding wet winter allowed for a good canopy and little water stress. What does all of that mean? Flavour and phenolics can develop to their full potential whilst retaining freshness and natural acidity.

Where in the World is Jim Barry Wines?

Jim Barry Wines are located in the heart of the Clare Valley, South Australia, Australia.