Don’t let the critics fool you. No, that’s not quite right. In a conversation with Nick Farr he referred to “the game” of knowing what wines to place with what critics. So disenchanted has he become, that if you are after multiple reviews, from multiple sources, you won’t find them. You’ll just have to trust what I’m telling you.
The Farr’s stand alone in Australian wine, their reputation and primary passion based upon the Burgundian varieties. And in this country, there are none better, and I would make the claim that they are our only world class producer of both.
If you were to superimpose their vineyard onto the map of France, they hold a thin sliver from chilly Burgundy, through to the hot rocky Rhone, and excel to the highest degree with all. Further, plantings of the Italian varietals Garganega and Nebbiolo, just to complicate matters. The nebbiolo has not seen the light of day and this year marked the first release of Garganega. Only Castagna has the breadth, diversity and quality across its range to match the Farrs.
In terms of the 2026 winter releases, buy the wines and you will be rewarded with immense pleasure at prices affordable, although I do hope they hold them here for a little while yet.
My pick of the whites is the viognier, a joyous, fleshy, luxurious example of phenomenal poise, complexity and balance.
And of the pinot’s, the Sangreal. Often as much I can’t squeeze out the qualitative differences with Farrside, but the 2024 Sangreal is statement pinot noir of the very highest level – the Farr’s winemaking virtuosity from the undeniable grandeur of their own Grand Cru site.
Like the shiraz, By Farr’s viognier takes a back seat to chardonnay and pinot noir. However, what makes the Farr’s such a compelling producer is their virtuosity with their entire range, producing one of the country’s finest shiraz’s and arguably our best viognier.
According to Nick Farr, 2025 was a challenging vintage, but the warm conditions and the speed of ripening was perfect for viognier. The picking window for viognier is very narrow indeed, as once ripe, acidity falls off very quickly, and even a day late can jeopardise the entire harvest.
This is the year of the malic acids, registering high numbers, and in the chardonnay, for the first time ever, not all was converted to lactic acid. But I don’t taste this with the viognier, as it seems to me the acid is all citrus, not green apple, and there is lots of curve, cream and flesh. A hot, dry vintage can force your hand, however, the viognier is detailed, balanced and tensioned.
Curvaceous and unctuous, the fruit appearing very sweet, cut through with the most precise zing of acidity. Lime, yellow peach, apricots, green mango, white flowers, cashew, flint, white cherry and nougat. Complex, long, balanced, complete. Phenomenal drinking upon release, and although there is ageing potential, it’s gorgeous now. I don’t think there is a better example of viognier in Australia, and the pick of the whites for me.
Yummm. By Farr is in the top tier of Australian chardonnay, and there are certainly none better. Last year’s GC Chardonnay, the 2024 was my pick all year, so ravishing and tensioned it was. And yet the estate 2025 is a totally different beast.
During our recent discussion, Nick Farr went on to point out that never has a By Farr Chardonnay tasted like this one, due to the high level of malic acid that wasn’t converted to lactic acid (malolactic fermentation). Personally, I believe it’s not so much the taste, but the shape and feel. White flowers, green apple, brioche, cashew, lemon, mandarin, and very saline. Very linear this year, direct, the oak spectacularly integrated, despite the lack of malo. Very long indeed and could do with a few more years to present at it’s very best.
The virtuosity of Farr is on full display here, as is the quality of the material they have to work with, having to adapt to the unique vintage conditions that presented themselves in an unprecedented way in the winery, and yet the wine is still as good as anything the Farr’s have ever released. Unique wine, off a wonderful site. An Australian Grand Cru.
By Farr Farrside Pinot Noir 2024
Every year, it’s a tussle to decide my preference; Sangreal or Farrside. A warmer, even vintage 2024, without extremes and there seems a certain evenness to the two pinots, they are so well appointed.
Another feature of this release is their apparent openness, so much so that I cannot remember these two wines tasting so well upon release, they really are good to go. Certainly a bigger wine than the 2023, the Farrside fruit is more complex with a compote of red black and hedge fruits, flecked with mixed flowers, clove and cardamon.
Deep, almost plush, the flesh muscular and weighty, the tannins embedded deep and the acidity a conduit. Just towards the back do I get some wildness of spice, flowers and smoked meats, hinting at a long and sensual exotic future. Fabulous.
By Farr Sangreal Pinot Noir 2024
An older vineyard than the Farrside, planted in 1994 and, for me, the Farr’s most unique expression of pinot noir. The long even vintage has yielded a wine of spotless cut, with the colours and profiles of the four seasons.
Never has it been more immediate and impudent, it’s so pinot, but no other pinot tastes like this. It swaggers silk, and folded, rolling, tumbling flowing fruit of every colour and shade. Catching glimpses, sometimes faint and other times raw, of flowers, spices, herbs, minerals, meats and earth. No tension, just interwoven. Clarity, movement, purity and silken intensity; the palate whipped, lashed and feathered for minutes. An Australian Grand Cru.
The 2021 By Farr Shiraz is one of the finest ever made in my memory and so it is with this context that I taste every shiraz from this fabled producer. It is a testament that they are able to turn their hand to multiple varieties at the very highest qualitative level.
Shiraz is our most important and greatest varietal, such is the diversity of site, quantity and quality that shiraz is able to thrive in. While the Farr’s are known as one of this country’s only genuinely world class producers of chardonnay and pinot noir, they too have plantings of shiraz and are able to craft an utterly gorgeous example.
To be clear, there is a small percentage of viognier, around 4-5%. Viognier finishes, balances and fleshes out the wine, whilst drawing the drinker in with dialed up luminosity, aromatics and caressed tannins.
Nick Farr believes this to be Rhone like. I don’t. I believe this to be Farr-like and very much Australian, because despite its grace and poise, the sun is shining in this wine.
Tangy red fruits, dark cherry, plum, chocolate orange, cinnamon, cassis and blueberry. Medium bodied and silken, yet the strapping is firm and made deeper by black olive, mace, clove and fresh compost. Multifaceted, you can throw just about any epithet at this wine, assuming it’s positive, and you’d be hitting the nail.
By Farr’s shiraz is always a hard sell with all the fuss generated by the Burgundian varieties and yet this is consistently one of the best Australia has to offer amongst the stiffest of competition. Would love to see a Guigal LA-LA take from the Farrs!
And a restating of the 2024 Irrewarra Pinot Noir
Retasting a Farr wine is a great pleasure on at least two levels. Firstly, it’s a Farr, so if you’re choosing wine remember rule No.1, 2 and 3; producer, producer, producer. Every wine that I have tasted whether it be Farr Rising, By Farr, or Irrewarra is exceptional.
Secondly, every tasting reveals a wine in evolution and in the case of the 2024 Irrewarra, I was struck by the compounding intensity, balance, shape and deepening mid palate. There was just a hell of lot more. Rarely would I update a tasting note, or rewrite the same wine twice, but in this case, I feel an exception needs to be made.
Wines coming off the Farr vineyard in Bannockburn always display the character traits of their sites and maker, and with almost fifty years of winemaking experience in the region they have seen just about everything that a vintage can throw at them.
Irrewarra however, has always presented quite differently, and not only due to the utterly different site characteristics, but that the winemaking was in a state of evolution; the Farr’s finding their vinous feet in a region that isn’t a region.
In the past, I have tended to think that the pinot noir had two sides, the front and back end of the palate. Red fruited, spicy, earthy and expressive, with some pretty firm tannins to close out the wine. Two delicious sides for all that, but not quite complete, with a little bit lacking in the mid palate, and the tannins, not quite as finessed.
For me, this all changed with the 2023, the finest to date, and a thoroughly exciting wine, albeit a totally different expression of pinot, and yet so pinot. It was a fabulous contradiction.
If 2023 set a new standard, then 2024 has set the benchmark. The most thoroughly complete Irrewarra pinot noir to date, the Farr’s mastering what is a very Australian piece of real estate.
The fruits, still red, very red and tangy, with strong notes of plum and in a sense the wine’s shape is very round. Voluminous palate, enveloping, with a ballooning of texture and turbo charged flavour. Flecked with spices; paprika, tarragon, tar and fresh compost, the tannins so finessed and silky, yet framing and decisive.
I love the harnessing of elements, the effort to balance everything the site has to offer and not push the wine into something it’s not. Not as savoury as some commentators have claimed and in no way does it taste like something out of Burgundy. And so it shouldn’t. It’s very pinot, Irrewarra style.
