93pts Jane Anson
Thoroughly tasty, plenty of creamy white pear fruit with citrus character, clove spice, and a healthy amount of slate scrape and juice on the finish. 27ha. Creamy gold colour, one month ageing on the lees, Jean-Jacques Dubourdieu.
91-93pts Vinous
The 2023 Clos Floridène Blanc is a heady dry white from the Dubourdieu family. Tangerine peel, chamomile, apricot and honeyed notes build in a creamy, layered white that shows the richer side of the year. Readers will find a voluptuous, extroverted wine that will shine at its brightest at the dinner table.
- Antonio Galloni
90pts Vinous
The 2023 Clos Floridène Blanc has a lively and well-defined bouquet with yellow fruit, Granny Smith and light stony aromas. The palate is fresh and crisp with grapefruit and orange rind notes. It's a little pithier than its peers, with a slightly resinous finish.
- Neal Martin
History
Clos Floridène, is today a 40 ha vineyard, in the Graves appellation; mainly located on the limestone plateau of Pujols sur Ciron, near Barsac, it also has a few plots on the stony terraces of Illats. Its name evokes the first names of its founders: Denis and Florence Dubourdieu.
From its beginnings, in 1982, Clos Floridène is a small enclosure comprising 2 hectares of old white vines of Sémillon and Muscadelle, a winegrower's house, an old winery and 2 hectares of wasteland planted as soon as they were acquired with Cabernet Sauvignon. Gradually, through successive purchases of neighboring plots, the current vineyard was formed. In 1991, Clos Floridène expanded significantly by attaching Château Montalivet, a 13-hectare vineyard, essentially contiguous to Floridène.
The Clos Floridène wines were first produced in the cellars of Château Reynon. In 2004, the first phase of the construction of the Floridène winery began. These new facilities make it possible to vinify Clos Floridène red from the 2005 vintage.
In 2016, the second phase of work begins with the aim of creating vinification and aging facilities for white wines (until then vinified at Château Reynon). Also, the property's historic winegrower's house has been renovated and transformed into a guest house, with an adjoining reception room allowing Clos Floridène to organize events and launch into wine tourism.
The work ends in 2018, so it took 36 years of work to establish Clos Floridène as an independent and globally recognized wine entity.
