Jim Barry The Armagh Shiraz 2017
£199.45
The wine
The Armagh is one of the great red wines of Australia. Jim Barry planted the vineyard by hand with his family in 1968, on an exposed, low-yielding site named by Irish settlers for the lush hills of home. Complex, intense aromas of rich dark fruit, mocha and garden herbs lead to a palate of concentrated dark fruit, fine tannins enveloping black cherry and blackberry with undertones of mocha oak and a hint of aniseed. A wine of great complexity, power, length and poise, collected worldwide and built for decades. Part of our Armagh vertical.
The producer
Jim Barry Wines
View all Jim Barry Wines winesCertain names resonate through Australian wine history, and Jim Barry is one of them. It was Jim's drive that shaped South Australia's Clare Valley into a benchmark for world-class Riesling. He was the valley's first qualified winemaker, graduating in oenology from the prestigious Roseworthy Agricultural College in 1947, and founded his own winery in 1959.The company remains family owned, with three generations of Roseworthy graduates. Jim's son Peter became managing director in 1985, and today Peter's children Tom, Sam and Olivia serve as winemaker, commercial manager and brand ambassador. In 2020 the family was named Winery of the Year at the Halliday Wine Companion Awards.
The range tells the whole Clare story: taut, limey Rieslings from Watervale, Lodge Hill and the storied Florita vineyard; the pioneering Assyrtiko, grown from cuttings Peter carried home from Santorini; the Loosen Barry collaborations with Germany's Ernst Loosen; and a run of famous reds from Lodge Hill and McRae Wood to The Benbournie. At the summit stands The Armagh, one of Australia's greatest Shiraz wines, planted by hand in 1968 and collected the world over. We are proud to hold a vertical of it.
