2022 Jim Barry The Armagh Shiraz, Clare Valley

Very minty on the nose, spearmint and salty strawberries with pencil shavings and lots of dried flowers. A gorgeous aromatic profile that draws you in. Wow, instantly captivating, you can’t help but smile as soon as you taste this. Succulent strawberries and crunchy cranberries join quite spiced liquorice edges giving a push-pull of flavour. Light on its feet but still deep and captivating. This is dangerously drinkable with such charm on offer. Bright and energetic yet layered and long. Bottled happiness! I love this wine and this is another great vintage by the Barry boys - Tom Barry and Ben Marx winemakers. A wine that lingers long in the memory.

99 points Decanter, 8 Jul 2025

I once tasted through a vertical of The Armagh Shiraz with Tom and Sam Barry, and it was as illuminating as it was enjoyable. I still think about that day when I taste current-release Armaghs, as I learned something vital about my own approach to the wine during that tasting. In a nutshell, the winemaking has never been better or more precise than it is under Tom Barry's direction. The wines across the board have better clarity and precision than ever before, and the construction takes a back seat to the vineyard in almost all cases, which is the highest form of compliment I can think to give to any winemaker. In the case of The Armagh Shiraz, the early wines were matured in American oak and sealed under cork. Closure willing, great bottles of these old wines are great experiences, and I feel no shortage of nostalgia when I drink them. The wines of the current day are sealed under screw cap and matured in French oak, and the wine has never been better, fresher, nor more sophisticated. As the nostalgic shackles of the past are removed bit by bit each vintage, the incremental improvements to viticulture and winemaking are exposed, and so through the "loss" of one aspect, the gain of another is had. And so, to the wine. Here, the 2022 The Armagh Shiraz is a product of the cooler, wetter vintage in 2022 than was experienced in the great 2021 before it. The wine is detailed and fresh, with rose petals and earth, hung deli meat and ironstone, star anise, clove and dark chocolate. The wine retains the DNA of those early wines in its expression of brown/purple fruit, warm baking spices and roasted meat, yet the lift and vibrancy of the new-guard thinking is subtly overlaid. This is a tremendous release, perhaps slightly lighter than the deep 2021 and with greater edge and complexity. It is excellent. The lessons learned in the cool and wet 2017 vintage were aptly applied in 2022 via shoot thinning and green harvesting. The fermentation and oak vessels were similarly adapted this year to suit the season. Drink 2025 to 2052.

97+ points Erin Larkin for The Wine Advocate, September 2025

Complex, polished aromas of blueberries, blackberry bush, damson plums, violets, raspberry puree and sweet spices. The finely tuned, silken palate has refined tannins and precise acidity, showing ferric earth, citrus peel, boysenberries and dark chocolate. There has been a big change in style here over the last 10 years. Aged exclusively in large French-oak vessels, 50% new. Excellent balance and purity with great freshness and a long life ahead. Drink or hold.

97 points James Suckling, April 2025

Deep, bright, bold red-purple colour; the wine is chocolate, mocha and blackberry scented, richly concentrated on palate with powerful flavour, liberal oak in balance, and smooth, supple, glossy tannins. Gorgeous flavour in a big, sumptuous shiraz that already drinks remarkably well, but will have a long life if cellared. Drink 2027 to 2042.

96 points Huon Hooke for The Real Review, January 2025

Impressive for power, concentration and richness of fruit, the wine lavished with clove-cinnamon oak and detail of gum leaf, mint and undergrowth. It's got a palate-staining command and supple tannins lending shape, the wine incredibly bold and full, with warmth of fruit and booze-soaked characters rippling through with authority. In all this, a sense of marriage of its elements, though approaching in youth is to be done with a lusty decant. Drink 2025 to 2045.

95 points Mike Bennie for Halliday Wine Companion, August 2025

The 2022 Shiraz The Armagh is a more streamlined vintage with a robust core of blackberry and licorice aromas lifted by a nice touch of eucalyptus with a backbone of stylish oak. This is generously weighted with long, sinewy tannins and its flavors are still bound up. The 2022 will take a little longer to come out of its shell but will be worth the wait. Drink 2035 to 2044.

94 points Angus Hughson for Vinous, August 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 Armagh is the wine that cemented the family's reputation, a single vineyard Shiraz from a three-hectare block planted by Jim Barry in 1968 on gravelly, low-fertility soils over clay in the Armagh district, named for the Irish town from which many of the region's early settlers came. Dry grown and cropped at naturally tiny yields, the vines are now approaching six decades of age.

Under third-generation winemaker Tom Barry, the wine has undergone a quiet but significant evolution: from American oak and cork to French oak and screwcap, and from power as the primary objective to precision and clarity of site expression. The Armagh has never been better made than it is now.

The 2022 was a cooler, wetter season than the celebrated 2021 before it, and the lessons learned in the similarly cool 2017 vintage were applied with confidence — shoot thinning, green harvesting, and careful adaptation of fermentation and oak vessels to suit the season. The result is a wine of detail and freshness rather than sheer volume. Matured exclusively in large French oak vessels, 50% new.

Rose petal, earth and ironstone on the nose, with dark fruit, hung meat, star anise, clove and dark chocolate building in layers. The palate is silken and precisely constructed. Ferric earth, citrus peel, boysenberry and dark chocolate, with refined tannins and a finish of extraordinary length.

Slightly more streamlined than the 2021, and a vintage where finesse and complexity take precedence over sheer weight. Will reward time in the decanter before serving. Enjoy alongside slow-braised lamb, wagyu beef rib or aged hard cheese.

Drink from 2027 through to 2042.