2021 Jim Barry Spring Farm Block 81 Malbec

96 POINTS

Mike Bennie - Halliday's Wine Companion

A Very Fancy Malbec. Delivers concentration, power and grace. A fully fledged experience with inky, blackberry and red plum fruit, some choc-mint elements, salted licorice and some sage leaf and salt bush herbal notes in the mix. Though deep and brooding, there's a litheness here, too, a web of fine, silky tannins delivering more power but a sheath of minerally texture and character that stretches the wine especially long. It feels fancy from hello, and we're given an insight into elegance and poise from this variety. Impressive.

96 POINTS

Erin Larkin - Wine Advocate

The 2021 Spring Farm Block 81 Malbec leads with chocolate box and pomegranate, wilted garden rose, raspberry and pink peppercorns. Dried mint and shaved fennel complete the bouquet. In the mouth, the wine is ferrous, bloody and dry, with a splay of tannin that shapes the fruit through the middle palate and finish. This is a superb rendition of Malbec. It is succulent and chewy. Tasting it alongside the Spring Farm Cabernet, one can't help but wonder at the magic that could have been possible with a blend of the two. Sealed under screw cap. Very little of this wine was bottled—just 600 liters. This is the Malbec that contributed to the 2021 Clarevale, and what was "left over" was bottled as this single-variety cuvée.

95 POINTS

David Sly - Decanter

This new single-block wine is a statement to reinforce a largely overlooked traditional strength of Clare – the luscious body and powerful drive of rich Malbec. From a protected cooler block on the Spring Farm Vineyard that consistently produces small, concentrated berries, this wine carries a huge perfume of dark purple fruits framed by a whiff of Australian eucalyptus. Its lean, tight entry opens to a more complex mid-palate of chocolate, rosewater and cedar, rolling around red plum and blackberry and kept in line by robust, chewy tannins. It’s quite dignified – a wine of aspiration that insists Malbec from Clare deserves its place on a high pedestal.

94 POINTS

James Suckling

This plush, full-bodied red has notes of ripe black cherries, blueberries, roses and aniseed. It’s broad and creamy, structured too, with ripe and polished tannins running the length of the wine. Blue-fruited and fragrant finish. Drink from 2025. Screw cap.

94 POINTS

Gary Walsh - The Wine Front

I don’t have a bottle image, and this comes as a cleanskin, albeit a $200 cleanskin. This is a much better wine for me than the 2021 Armagh, and on the bright side, it’s $300 cheaper. Plum, blackberry, Dutch liquorice, dried roses, some mint nougat and baking spice. It’s medium to full-bodied, carries plenty of classic dried rose perfume, choc dipped plum and raspberry, has a juicy character to fruit, and plenty of fine-grained silty and silky tannin, with a finish of excellent length. Very good wine, and I reckon it will settle and improve with more time in bottle.

94 POINTS

Gary Walsh - The Wine Front

I don’t have a bottle image, and this comes as a cleanskin, albeit a $200 cleanskin. This is a much better wine for me than the 2021 Armagh, and on the bright side, it’s $300 cheaper. Plum, blackberry, Dutch liquorice, dried roses, some mint nougat and baking spice. It’s medium to full-bodied, carries plenty of classic dried rose perfume, choc dipped plum and raspberry, has a juicy character to fruit, and plenty of fine-grained silty and silky tannin, with a finish of excellent length. Very good wine, and I reckon it will settle and improve with more time in bottle.