99 pts Wine Advocate #173

Tasting Notes

A big, rich traditional McLaren Vale Shiraz. Ripe dark fruits and strong hints of chocolate with lovely underlying black pepper. Full, rich palate, great length and finished with soft sandy tannins. Big and rich but with structure.Red meats or strong, hard cheese. Any game and roasted vegetables.

Food Accompaniments

Red meats or strong, hard cheese. Any game and roasted vegetables.

Awards, Reviews and other Notes

99pts Robert Parker, Jr.'s The Wine Advocate #173
There are only 70 cases of the 2003 Shiraz “The Ox”. As noted above, the wine comes from a 116-year-old vineyard with microscopic yields of 0.25 – 0.50 tons per acre. It spent 24 months in old French oak and was bottled unfined and unfiltered. Saturated purple/black, this Shiraz has a hugely expressive bouquet of cedar, pepper, blueberry, blackberry liqueur, and chocolate. Full-bodied and thick on the palate, it exhibits a plush texture, a complex flavor profile, amazing depth and concentration, ripe tannins, and a finish that will not quit. It is a testament to what old vines and talented winemaking can achieve. Congratulations to Southern Starz for discovering this gem. Andrew Hardy is winemaker for Petaluma and his family holdings include an amazing Upper Tintara vineyard planted to Shiraz in 1891 and which has been producing ever since.

93 pts Stephen Tanzer International Wine Cellar 2007
Opaque purple. Intensely aromatic nose offers vibrant, mineral-accented red- and blackcurrant. Bitter cherry and dark chocolate flavors display impressive depth and palate-staining sweetness. Bright minerality firms the very broad, impressively long dark berry-dominated finish.

Winemaker Notes

The hand picked fruit is de-stemmed and crushed into an open fermenter. Yeast is added immediately, a neutral clean fermenter such as Bordeaux Red. The cap is plunged gently by hand 8 to 10 times per day and allowed to rest between midnight and six in the morning. At sugar dryness, the skins are pressed in a tank press: al pressing are included. The wine is then put to barrel. Malo-lactic fermentation takes place in oak, using bacteria from Wendouree. The barrels are racked twice a year and kept topped regularly. No fining or filtration is undertaken and the wine bottled when I feel like it is ready. Grown by Robert Hardy, my father, on the Upper Tintara vineyard first planted by Dr. AC Kelly in 1861, and then bought by my great-great grandfather in 1877. The Shiraz vines that grow this wine were planted in 1891 and have been producing ever since. The soils are dark brown sandy loam, over brown to red brown well-structured clay. These soils are underlain by the Tapley Hill formation, which is about 750 million years old. The vines are hand pruned and hand picked and are very shy bearers. The vines that grow this fruit were planted in 1891 and the vineyard is still tendered by my father, Robert G Hardy.

Chemical Analysis

Price

SKU

Varietal

Alcohol %: 15.1
Total Acid: 6.5
Free/Total Sulfur: 25/90
pH: 3.63
Residual Sugar: 0

$99.99

6898

Shiraz