Ox Hardy Slate Shiraz comes from winemaker Andrew ‘Ox’ Hardy. Continuing his family’s rich winemaking legacy in McLaren Vale, this Shiraz fruit was made in the ruins of Thomas Hardy’s original Upper Tintara winery. It is a pure and nuanced wine of medium body, made in small batches to best capture the essence of very special terroir.
The fruit for Slate comes from the Moreton Bay block of the Hardy family vineyard. It is open fermented, basket pressed, and matured for 18 months in French oak barriques. Much of the labour is carried out by hand. This is a small batch wine of incredible presence and precision. On the palate, expect coffee, dark chocolate, and dark berry fruits.
If you take every word that I have written in the 2018 vintage note for slate and swop out the Bandol reference for Cornas from Allemande you will see, once again, that this statesmanlike 2019 Slate Shiraz has nailed it again. If anything, this vintage contains even more potential and even deeper wells of thrilling fruit. There are coffee notes, hung game hints, dark chocolate and tar references, but these are filigree details to the all-pervasive, omnipotent Shiraz fruit. Once again, this is not a big wine. This is important to underline. It is a medium weight fellow with mind-bending purity and intensity and this is what makes it so unforgettable and also desirable.
19+ points, MatthewJukes.com.au (December 2020)
This steps things up a bit. It’s the extra length that does it. It’s a ripe, semi-rustic turn at shiraz, with bitumen and plum flavours doing most of the lifting, but the finish reaches so very far and beyond that, by the end of it all, you’ve noticed the extra dimensions added by various florals and dry, rusty spice notes. It’s a wine of layers and length. It’s top notch.
95 points, The Wine Front (April 2021)
Fabulously deep, vibrant and very youthful in the glass, inky and opaque. Deep, dark and brooding aromatics of dark cherry, dark chocolate, satsuma plums, graphite and a touch of spice: really evocative. The palate is all black fruits, with a plushness and juiciness to it, but there's ample palate defining tannins and acid that keep the powerfully opulent, decadent fruit in check.
95 points, The Real Review (April 2021)
Fermented in a legion of open-top fermenters made from local slate, a legacy of the original Upper Tintara winery. Basket pressed and matured for 18 months in old French wood. A glossy deep purple, brimming with life. Pulpy. Grapey. Effusive of violet, mace, blueberry, molten raspberry, nori and Seville orange scents. The tannins, detailed and moreish, grape skinsy and nourishing. They serve as this delicious wine's orb around which everything else revolves. Long, sappy and just firm enough.
94 points, Wine Companion (December 2020)
