Wow. This is a bold, brassy shiraz that carries a wealth of very intense aromas of ripe blackberries, dark plums, licorice and sweetly spiced earth. Still so very youthful and primary. The palate is so powerful, so mouth-filling and so, so juicy. This manages to deliver such intensity and composure. Supple, long and deep-set tannins and heroically expressive fruit. Really impressive now, but this will deliver much more over the next two decades. One of the finest releases to date.
This is a brilliant wine that makes you sit up and pay attention. Concentrated and mouthwatering with spicy liquorice root and black cherries. Needs a couple more years to fully open but already it packs a punch without being overpowering, and it achieves the feat of great wines where you simply know how good they are by how your palate responds to the effortless balance of tannin, juice and brambled fruit. Long ageing potential also. 3.5pH, 70% French oak, 30% American oak. From sandy gravel soils with full sun exposure meaning natural low yields of around 30hl/ha.
Saturated violet. Powerful, spice-accented black and blue fruits, incense, potpourri and licorice on the hugely perfumed nose. Stains the palate with alluringly sweet, finely detailed blueberry, cassis, mocha, exotic spice and cola flavors; a hint of vanilla appears with air. Blends power and finesse with a sure hand and shows superb balance and zero rough edges. Finishes wonderfully long and juicy, with harmonious tannins and resonating spice and floral notes.
The 2016 The Armagh Shiraz, tasted in a lineup of four vintages (2016 - 2019), has the highest alcohol of the lot (14.2% alcohol) and remains perfectly in balance. These are not the big wines that we may expect them to be. The vintage variation across them is subtle but evident, revealing the beauty of this single vineyard, planted in 1968. This 2016 wine is now starting to settle into its first drinking window and speaks of an array of deli meats, forest berries, exotic spice and even a hint of red curry paste. This has all the complexity you could want, and in terms of tannins: texture, density and rippling muscles. Sensational stuff. Drink it over the next two decades.
This offers a stunning mix of intense flavors, with notes of salted black licorice, black walnut liqueur, wild blackberry, bittersweet chocolate, cigar box and black cherry preserves that are plump and generous, yet balanced with firm, dense tannins, fresh loamy earth and malty Assam black tea on the finish. Harmonious, with a long, expressive finish, where a note of fresh mint lingers. Drink now through 2038. 40 cases imported.
Winery Notes
Colour: Crimson red with a magenta hue in the glass.
Aroma: A complex and fragrant nose combining lifted elderberry and dark plum with choc mint, hints of liquorice and graphite notes.
Palate: An intense palate of sweet forest floor, red cherry and milk chocolate, intertwined with notes of baking spice and aniseed. The palate is long and lingering, firm tannins with flavours of damson plumbs, blueberry compote and toasty chestnut from the oak. A wine of enormous complexity and longevity.