Ox Hardy Slate Shiraz 2022 x 6
Product Description
Black in colour with purple hues. Aromas of spice, dark florals and earth. The palate is intense blackberry and liquorice. Medium bodied with grippy, powdery tannins that move through to a long, smooth finish.
Lovely winter and early spring rain ensured the Upper Tintara Vineyard was in
great health leading into a dry summer. The Moreton Bay block was picked on the
8th March 2022, the fruit destemmed, crushed and chilled before we bucketed it
out of bin into the slate fermenters, built in 1863.
Fermentation began after about three days, the natural yeast taking this long to get
going. For ten days the ferments were hand plunged morning, noon and night.
Towards sugar dryness the wine was pumped out, before we jumped into the
fermenters and bucketed the skins out which were then pressed.
The wine was then transferred to French oak barriques and matured for 15
months, before bottling on the 7th February 2025, and released in April 2025.
Winemaker
Appellation
Variety
Vintage
Colour
Aroma
Palate
TECHNICAL
Andrew Hardy
Blewitt Springs
Shiraz
2022
Inky with purple hues Plums, hint of spice and a blueberry lift Dark fruits continue onto the palate. Minerally texture with powdery tannins and a long finish
Alc 14.5% | pH 3.58 | TA 6.4g/L
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A labour of love that shows what true preservation of history can deliver.'
96 Points
Made using the ancient slate fermenters plunged three times daily. A potent mix of blackberries, açaí and prune plums. Black Forest cake, sage and hemp leaf. Crushed clove and black cardamom. Sinewy tannins are toted by a long line of acidity. Its intensity of black fruit and exotic spice is layered and detailed. There is kelp and graphite too. Beautifully layered together and will carry on its personality long into the future. A labour of love that shows what true preservation of history can deliver. Drink now–2034
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'A wholly lovely wine...'
95 Points
It's difficult to avoid the power of suggestion, however, and the wine expounds a mineral coolness on the nose that informs the tannins on the palate. This is pure and medium-bodied, with graphite, blueberry, clove, dark chocolate, raw cocoa, crushed granite, dried herbs and asphalt and even ozone/petrichor through the finish. A wholly lovely wine, it mainlines the silky exoticism that defines McLaren Vale Shiraz while also delivering this within an elegantly ductile framing. It's chalky and excellent.
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' It’s refined, transparent, absent of heft and invested in detail...'
95 Points
Fermented in the ancient Willunga slate fermenter that was revived some years back, this saw 16 months in older French oak. There’s a real elegance in the last two releases, both cool years, and this feels even more airy and open, poised and lightly framed. Blueberries, violets, nori, iodine, ground pepper and tart boysenberry, umeboshi, a lick of salt and anise pastille. It’s refined, transparent, absent of heft and invested in detail, the tannins softly caressing.
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'This is a rich and kind of rugged wine.'
93 Points
Slate, meaning massive slabs of slate mined from the Willunga Hills. And after 95 years of decay, they revived them. I dig it. Though I would not enjoy digging them out. I’m a lazy wine critic who doesn’t go in for manual labour. 10% new oak, the rest old. This is a rich and kind of rugged wine. Plenty of tannin, blackberry, a sage and ironstone perfume, a bit of clove and baking spice, suede leather in flavour and texture, a minor amount of warmth, earl grey tea perfume, a bit salty and meaty, with some grip and spice, and something of a smoked ham aftertaste. Good wine. Grainy, but wholesome and earthy.
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