Man O' War Ironclad 2022

Reviews

Cameron Douglas MS: 95/100.  An excellent bouquet of power and concentration, dark plums and blackberry fruits, lots of baking spices, smoky wood and new barrel scents. There’s an enticement from the synergy of aromas along with and earthy stony quality adding depth and intrigue. Full-bodied, dry, plenty of tannins and acidity delivery a taut and very youthful mouthfeel. Fruit flavours remain at the core with dark skinned plums and blackberry, there’s also chocolate and brown baking spices, a lick of salt, a long finish and complexity. Best drinking from 2028 through 2038.

Tasting Note

The 2022 Ironclad is untamed in the best sense of the word, with dark fruits; plums and berries, wildflowers, crushed rock and iodine creating a complex and lifted aroma profile. The palate shows good density balanced with coastal freshness and finishing with a core of powerful tannins. The power of the vintage has been tempered at blending with a rare dominance of Merlot over Cabernet Franc giving the wine good early accessibility but clearly a wine suited to ageing.

Aromas and flavours

Additional information

Type: Red wine

Varials: 21% Cabernet Franc, 44% Merlot, 18% Petit Verdot, 15% Cabernet Sauvignon, 2% Malbec.

Suggested food match: Beef Wellington, Beef Carpaccio with crispy capers.

Vintage 2022: Vintage 2022 was excellent for Bordeaux reds, balanced crops, and a hot and dry season for the region resulted in Man O' War's second largest harvest of 450 tons across all vineyard sites.

Winemaking: Sourced from 14 different vineyard sites across 5 varieties the Ironclad is a classic Right Bank Bordeaux style blend. All the vineyards are dry grown, and hand harvested from steep valley sites sheltered from the cooling winds of the Pacific Ocean. Each parcel is fermented separately with wild yeasts in open top fermenters with a total time in vat of 30 days. Pressed and aged separately in 500 litre French Oak puncheons (30% new oak, 70% seasoned) the wines undergo natural malolactic fermentation and rest on gross lees for 18 months. After rigorous tasting and blending trials, the wines are then racked to blend, aged together for a further 6 months before bottling.

Cellaring potential: 2035+

The name Ironclad: Ironclad is named in honour of the 19th Century warships characterised by the iron armour bolted onto their wooden hulls, much as iron courses through the veins of our warm clay hillside vineyards.

Alcohol: 15% vol

Residual sugar:  <1 g/l

TA: 5.3 g/l

Bottle size: 0.75l

Notice: contains sulphites

Closure: Screwcap

Produced and bottled by: Man O' War Vineyards, PO Box 1287, Shortland Street, Auckland 1140, New Zealand

Distributor: vinabonus GmbH, Simmedenweg 40, 34134 Kassel, Germany