2023 Jim Barry The Armagh Shiraz, Clare Valley

2027 Shiraz of the Year. Score awarded by the Halliday tasting panel at the annual Awards judging. MB writes: The '23 harvest has produced perhaps one of the most restrained and fine Armagh releases of all. This is a sublime wine of control, levity and sense of freshness, but it doesn't miss the trick of concentration. There are ripples of dark forest berries, dark chocolate and cola, with new leather, graphite minerality, green olive herbal lift and a lick of spicy oak seasoning like a cherry on top. Tannins are silky, the wine beautifully and evocatively perfumed. The quieter voice and elegance here is beautiful. A striking wine.

99 points Panel Decision, 2027 Halliday Wine Companion Shiraz of The Year

Dark-fruited with blackberry, blackcurrant, licorice, dark chocolate, spice, cedar, earth, crushed blueberries and violets, showing the depth and complexity that come from old vines planted in 1968. The palate is seamlessly integrated with melting tannins, bright acidity and a long, lush finish where fresh fruit, earthy nuance and spice come together with a touch of freshness from the cooler vintage. Another knockout bottling from this exceptional Clare Valley vineyard. Drink or hold.

98 points Ryan Montgomery for James Suckling, September 2026

Jim Barry’s The Armagh is one of Australia’s great Shiraz stories. Jim Barry planted the vineyard in 1968 on the hills outside Clare, naming it after the Irish county where his ancestors had lived. Those old, low-yielding vines have since produced one of the country’s most celebrated reds, now made by the Barry family across three generations. The 2023 adds another rather impressive chapter: Halliday Wine Companion Shiraz of the Year and 99 points — serious honours for a wine already accustomed to the top shelf.

The Armagh vineyard sits around 400 metres above sea level, where Clare’s warm days are followed by markedly cool nights. Its ancient soils, low yields and old vines build enormous flavour, while elevation preserves the acidity and aromatic detail needed to keep that concentration alive. The 2023 has power in abundance, but it’s the balance between fruit, tannin, spice and freshness that makes The Armagh much more than simply a very big Shiraz.

Deep, almost opaque crimson, the nose surges with blackberry, black plum and blueberry before violet, liquorice and cracked pepper emerge. With air come graphite, black olive, espresso, smoked meat and dark chocolate. The palate is immensely concentrated yet controlled, with layers of dark fruit wrapped in formidable, finely sculpted tannins. Black pepper, cocoa and savoury herbs build through the middle before an extraordinarily long finish of blackberry, liquorice and earthy spice.

Bring out the heavy artillery: charcoal-grilled rib eye with bone marrow butter, slow-roasted lamb shoulder with rosemary and garlic, smoked beef short ribs, venison with juniper or braised beef cheek with truffled mash. Our pick is the rib eye, deep char, properly pink centre and melting bone marrow butter against The Armagh is not so much food matching as mutually assured deliciousness.

Drink from 2030 to 2050+.