Ox Hardy Upper Tintara Vineyard Shiraz comes from winemaker Andrew ‘Ox’ Hardy. Continuing his family’s rich winemaking legacy in McLaren Vale, this wine is affectionately known as ‘Little Ox’, an accessible and delicious introduction to the Ox Hardy range. With fruit from the same Upper Tintara vineyard as Ox Hardy flagship wine 1891 Ancestor Vines, the vines yielding the grapes for this wine were planted by the Hardy family at the turn of the millennium.
The fresh, lifted palate is indicative of a more contemporary expression of McLaren Vale Shiraz. Red berries, earth, and herbs linger. Aged in matured French oak, the primary fruit is allowed to sing and the terroir to shine through with beauty and precision.
Bright red berries with freshly dug earth and flowers. The oak is gently played. The palate has a succulent, fresh and quite crunchy delivery of red-berry flavors and a smooth-honed finish.
92 points, JamesSuckling.com (May 2020)
In 2017, you will immediately sense extraordinary freshness and lift in this wine. Unlike the swarthy, brooding 2016, the ‘17 shows that the unique maritime climate had control over this wine’s destiny and it calmed the sun’s rays allowing a more expressive side of this vineyard to show itself. Fresh forest fruit notes, a dusting of fertile earth, a scattering of dried herbs, an unlit Cohiba rolled between your fingers and a distant tang of ozone make this an utterly charming wine with uncommon restraint and poise.
18 points, MatthewJukes.com.au (December 2020)
A deep ruby-red colour. The nose lifts with mulberry fruits, earth and spices. A full weight but well balanced with a bright hint of acidity adding freshness. Lots of flavour layered through the core and a fine dusting of tannins controls and drives the finish quite long.
92 points, The Real Review (April 2021)
It has the flesh, it has the form. It has the softness of gentle development as well. It’s a plum-shot red wine with musk, violet, clove and iodine characters woven seamlessly through. Graphite too or something like it, like woodsmoke. But fruit, rich-but-buoyant fruit, is the hero here. It has quality written all over it but it’s delicious on top.
93 points, The Wine Front (April 2021)
