Ox Hardy Slate Shiraz 2021

96 POINTS

Ray Jordan - Winepilot.com

This is the fourth release of this wine which was fermented in old slate fermenters used until 1927 after which they fell into disrepair before Andrew Hardy brought them back to life. Lots of hands on here. The fruit was hand bucketed into the fermenter, hand plunged and then bucketed out after two weeks and pressed into oak. Smooth and delicious with a grainy savoury element cutting through the opulent concentrated plummy fruit. Fine tannins and that superb, understated oak play their parts. A beauty.

96 POINTS

Marcus Ellis - Halliday's Wine Companion

Fermented in the last surviving Willunga-quarried slate fermenter in the original winery, rescued in '18 after nearly a century of neglect. It’s no doubt a fine fermenter. But it’s also a statement about history, and the family’s connection to it, about a firm grounding in the Vale and the long-sighted forward embrace of the region. Raised in seasoned oak for 16 months. Blue and black berries, dark plum, kelp, iodine, salted licorice, iron and brooding dark florals. It’s a wine of site-specific reflection and soaring intensity, yet it manages all this without any heaviness or declarative winemaking. A soulful wine of place and calmly confident stewardship.

96 POINTS

Ken Gargett - WinePilot.com

From the Moreton Bay block in the Upper Tintara Vineyard in the Blewitt Springs sub-region, this is the fourth release of this wine. It was fermented in the old slate fermenters, which were built back in 1863 (they fell out of use in 1927, but Andrew Hardy restored one in 2018). This was from the winery used by Andrew’s great-great-grandfather. The fruit was hand bucketed into the fermenter, regularly hand-plunged, then bucketed back out before pressing into barrel, 20 months in French oak. Just 4,900 bottles made of this superb Shiraz. Dark maroon. The nose is all chocolate, cassis, cigar box, tobacco leaves and blackberries. There is good complexity here, and knife-edge balance while exhibiting such richness and a supple texture, seamless and utterly gorgeous before an extremely long finish. Everything is in balance to ensure a very long future, at least twenty years, but this is so good now, so hard to imagine much will be left by then.

95 POINTS

Ned Goodwin MW James Suckling

Lovely shiraz, full-bodied and immensely refined by virtue of its iron edginess, violet lilt and beef bouillon-soaked tannic structure. Notes of iodine and peppery freshness. This reminds me of a Cornas, with a little more weight and generosity. Should age very well indeed. Drink or hold. Screw cap.

94 POINTS

Jeremy Oliver

Bright aromas of cassis, redcurrants, cranberries and dark plums are lifted by scents of five spice and backed by smoky cedar/vanilla oak. It's fullish to medium in weight, long and gravelly, with a sumptuous core of sour-edged dark berry/plum fruit that steadily builds with aeration, ultimately finishing savoury, with schisty, mineral notes.

92 POINTS

Angus Hughson - Winepilot.com

This 2021 Upper Tintara Shiraz fermented in slate fermenters built in 1863 offers up welcoming and beautifully even aromas of licorice, dark chocolate and coffee beans with a core of impressive oak. Fleshy exuberant dark berry flavours are laced with cocoa and liqueur cherry flavours, the texture rich and open knit. The overall package is quite supple and approachable, with layers of spice and new leather emerging on the finish.