Jim Barry The Armagh Shiraz 2002
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Suckling
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Parker
Robert
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Dark and smoky nose with a touch of balsamic character. The black hole of the Clare Valley on the expansive and fleshy palate. So much black-fruit aroma that it’s hard to believe it’s a decade old, let alone two. The super-fine tannins give it wonderful silkiness at the very long finish. The same wine under cork closure is more supple, with a touch of caramel, rating two points lower.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
This bottle is the 2002 Shiraz The Armagh sealed under cork. Quite distinct from the Stelvin-sealed bottle tasted beside it. This is gorgeous, fresh, and pleasurable. The Stelvin bottle is more detailed, more precise and more focused—this is like drinking the same wine that has been decanted. It’s open without being loose, and it's more approachable than the Stelvin rendition. Exciting. I’d prefer to have the Stelvin in my cellar, but I’d prefer to have someone open the cork bottle for me. It is structurally very attractive. It has 15.8% alcohol and matured for 18 months in 50% French and 50% American oak barriques (225 liters).
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Marked by an unmistakable deep purple hue and savory aromatics, Syrah makes an intense, powerful and often age-worthy red. Native to the Northern Rhône, Syrah achieves its maximum potential in the steep village of Hermitage and plays an important component in the Red Rhône Blends of the south, adding color and structure to Grenache and Mourvèdre. Syrah is the most widely planted grape of Australia and is important in California and Washington. Sommelier Secret—Such a synergy these three create together, the Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre trio often takes on the shorthand term, “GSM.”
The Clare Valley is actually a series of narrow north to south valleys, each with a different soil type and slightly different weather patterns along their stretch. In the southern heartland between Watervale and Auburn, there is mainly a crumbled, red clay loam soil called terra rossa and cool breezes come in from Gulf St. Vincent. A few miles north, in Polish Hill, is soft, red loam over clay; westerlies blowing in from the Spencer Gulf influece this area's climate.
The differences in soil, elevation, degree of slope and weather enable the region to produce some of Australia’s finest, aromatic, spicy and lime-pithy Rieslings, as well as excellent Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon and Malbec with ripe plummy fruit, good acid and big structure.
Clare Valley is an isolated farming country with a continental climate known for its warm and sunny days, followed by cool nights—perfect for wine grapes’ development of sugar and phenolic ripeness in conjunction with notable acidity levels.