-
97
/ 100
Campbell Mattinson -
97
/ 100
James Halliday's Wine Companion -
96
/ 100
James Suckling
Red
Classification
Grenache
Variety
2022
Vintage
750ml (Bottle)
Bottle Size
Australia
Country
South Australia, McLaren Vale
Region
13.0%
Alcohol %
5-10 Years
Cellaring
Scores
97 / 100"This is ballistically good. I doubt that I’ll taste anything much better from these shores over the next 12 months. The first thing you notice is the plushness, which is always welcome, but it’s the finish that takes things to eleven. Wow, really, this wine has a show-stopping finish on it. It’s blessed with red and blue berry flavours, cedarwood, roasted spice and earth, but itemising the flavours of this wine kind of misses the point. It’s like focussing on the colour of a tidal wave. The complete and utter command of the final flourish of flavour and tannin here feels, as you swallow, like a high water mark. I’m sold, totally sold, on this wine."
- Campbell Mattinson
97 / 100
"The second release of the MMAD Vineyard label, and off its 1939-planted Blewitt Springs vineyard. About 15% whole bunches, fermented in wood and steel, maturation in concrete and large old French oak. Unlike the 2022 shiraz, this takes time to emerge from the glass. It’s all there, though. There’s a brooding quality at present, with nori, iodine and ferrous notes filtering up through dark red cherry, plum, raspberry and sultry florals. Some spicy, musky characters emerge with air. Tannin is a meaningful factor, a pleasingly natural grape-derived affair, rugged but never rustic. A seriously compelling wine, and further proof of how thrilling McLaren Vale grenache is right now, for both its quality and the unparalleled diversity in top-flight expressions."
- James Halliday's Wine Companion
96 / 100
"A sumptuously perfumed grenache with no shortage of structural exactitude and the tension that comes with it. Lilacs, tapenade, raspberry coulis, freshly picked strawberries and anise. Dried lavender and rosemary are bound to the tannic latticework. Salty and nourishing, with the warmth of umami across the long finish."
- James Suckling
Tasting Notes
Lovely mild ripening conditions gave us Grenache with an intense core of red and blue fruit. There is a purity and density, but also a lightness that belies the energy and power of the fruit. Raspberry coulis and pomegranate notes sit alongside fennel seed and cumin, and flavours continue to unfurl as the wine sits in the glass. The grapes were mostly destemmed and fermented as whole berries in open concrete and stainless steel, before aging in used 500 litre puncheons. Located in the dress circle of Blewitt Springs, MMAD Vineyard was first planted in 1939, and the oldest Shiraz blocks date from 1941. The vineyard has the fine Maslin sands found in Blewitt Springs, and is exposed to the fresh sea breezes from the south-west. Below the sand is a layer of ironstone pebbles, and this combination of sand, ironstone, and cooling winds gives both perfume and structure to the wines.
Tasting Profile
- Light
- Full
- Low Tannin
- Tannic
- Sweet
- Dry
- Low Acidity
- High Acidity