In South Australia’s celebrated Clare Valley wine region, the Jim Barry winery was founded in 1959 by Jim and Nancy Barry. Widely credited with helping to shape the valley as a benchmark producer of world class Riesling and Shiraz, Jim Barry played a substantial role in cementing Clare as one of Australia’s premier wine regions. Their most illustrious wine, The Armagh Shiraz, from a single vineyard planted by Jim Barry in 1968, is one of the undisputed icons of Australian wine.
Today the winery and its vineyards are owned and managed by Jim’s son, Peter Barry, along with his wife, Sue Barry, and their three children – Tom, Sam and Olivia – who are winemaker, commercial manager and brand ambassador respectively
Over 55 years the Barry family has worked to establish a mosaic of vineyards across the Clare Valley, each unique in site, soil and aspect. They also have two vineyards in the Coonawarra region, where they grow Cabernet Sauvignon on the famous Terra Rossa soils.
The Barry family firmly believes that great wine is made in the vineyard. Their philosophy of winemaking is to own and farm the vineyards themselves, in order to develop the best fruit flavors possible. The Jim Barry winemaking style aims to retain those ideal fruit flavors, emphasizing freshness, character and drinkability over massive power and heaviness.
The Armagh Vineyard
Jim Barry’s Armagh Shiraz has achieved extraordinary success and is regarded as one of Australia’s highest quality wines. The vineyard was named after the adjoining hamlet of Armagh, established by Irish settlers in 1849. Jim Barry planted the vineyard in 1968 with Shiraz grapes.
The vineyard is planted on its own roots on gray sandy abrasive topsoil over clay subsoil and receives an average rainfall of 600 millimetres per year. Minimal intervention is needed to maintain yields below 4 tons per hectare, which produce rich and concentrated fruit of the rare quality required to produce wines with ageing potential.
The Florita Vineyard
The Florita vineyard at Watervale is one of the oldest in the Clare Valley. This is the vineyard where legendary winemaker, John Vickery, sourced the grapes for his great Leo Buring Rieslings of the 1960s and 1970s. At a time when the South Australian government had initiated a vine pull program to counter an oversupply of grapes and the industry was in a state of turmoil, Mark, Peter and John Barry went against conventional wisdom and purchased the Florita vineyard in 1986. The unique soil composition is primarily loamy clay over limestone. Traditionally, vines from Florida are hand-pruned to a level of 40 buds per vine to maintain the intensity of flavor. The grapes are harvested in the cool of the night at their optimum ripeness to preserve the delicate Riesling flavors and to retain natural acidity.
The Lodge Hill Vineyard
The first time Jim Barry walked on the soils of Lodge Hill in 1977, he knew it was a special site. It now produces two of Jim Barry’s most famous wines – the Lodge Hill Riesling and the Lodge Hill Shiraz. Situated on the eastern ranges of the township of Clare, the Lodge Hill vineyard is one of the highest points in the valley. Jim’s original intention was to devote the entire Lodge Hill vineyard to premium Riesling. However, he discovered a very different soil profile on the small north-facing slope. Warmer than the rest of the property, Jim decided it was the perfect place to plant Shiraz. So in essence, there are two vineyards within the one.
The Shiraz vineyard’s soil consists of rich, chocolatey loam over rock in almost vertical sheets. The cracks between the sheets have been filled with soil, providing passage for the vine roots and free drainage – the ideal environment for low-yielding Shiraz vines.
The soil in the Riesling vineyard, on the other side of the crest, is brown loam over a layer of clay and slate bedrock that is about 900 million years old and has cracked just off the vertical so that water can drain freely through it. It’s a soil that nourishes the vines adequately, but makes them struggle just a bit, making it suited to growing intensely flavored, fine structured Rieslings.
The Old Cricket Ground Vineyard
Jim Barry always had an affection for Coonawarra and the region’s fabulous Cabernet Sauvignon fruit, so when the old Penola cricket ground went on the market, the opportunity to transform it into a vineyard was too good to miss.
Over thousands of years, erosion and air-borne dust have laid down the famous Coonawarra “terra rossa” soil. The limestone that underlies the area is porous and has an excellent water-holding capacity, providing a very good source of water during dry periods. Coonawarra has a cooler climate than many of the other Australian grape-growing regions. This cooler climate results in a much longer ripening season, which in turn produces excellent fruit flavors and unique tannin structure.
Accolades for Jim Barry Wines
- 5 Red Star Rating in James Halliday’s Wine Companion — “Outstanding winery regularly producing wines of exemplary quality and typicity.”
- Australian Winery of the Year, 2016/2017 — Matthew Jukes
- Top 10 Australian Wineries, 2016/2017 — Matthew Jukes
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