99 POINTS
Georgina Hindle - Decanter
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. 3.4pH.
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.
97 POINTS
Erin Larkin - Robert Parker Wine Advocate
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. 14% alcohol, sealed under screw cap.
95 POINTS
Mike Bennie - Halliday Wine Companion
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.
94 POINTS
Campbell Mattinson - The Wine Front
There’s a power of fruit here. It’s matched to powerful tannin though the emphasis is clearly on the rich spread of plum- and bitumen-driven flavour. There’s both a softness and a juiciness to this wine, neither too much nor too little of either, as it delivers flavours of redcurrant, decayed roses, choc-mint and toasty cedarwood notes. It’s worth pointing out that oak, while present, is so beautifully integrated that it doesn’t feel like a major player in the wine. Everything here has been precisely placed. It also feels as though tis wine is only just starting to clear its throat; it sits fractionally back in the palate, as if set for a long journey.
94 POINTS
Angus Hughson - Vinous
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.
