It’s an exciting evening at the Wine Fairy house: The bottle on the table is big, red, and Grenache-y. We’re tasting the “7th Son” red blend from McLaren Vale’s Mitolo Wines, and the one-word review summary is, “Whoa!”
Mitolo’s “7th Son” is in the genre of GSM blends, but with an Italian twist: The Mourvèdre is swapped out for Sagrantino. This is a wine of incredible fruit concentration. It’s also meaty and smoky and spicy, yet still bright and refreshing on the palate–everything a Grenache lover could want. Extra points to “7th Son” for sharing its name with the cheesy (and underrated) 2014 action-fantasy movie starring Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore.
Speaking of movies, here is the best way I can convey this wine’s tantalizing bouquet of assorted fruits:
Okay: It’s like when you’re at the movie theater and someone sitting one row behind you opens a giant, fresh “Share Size” bag of Welch’s “Berries ’n Cherries” fruit snacks and suddenly you can’t focus on the movie because your nose is full of fruit and your mouth is watering and you’re in the throes of a capital-C Candy Craving. You’re half-tempted to walk out to the concession stand and get your own because the movie is on its 40th boring car chase scene anyway, but you don’t know whether they actually bought the fruit snacks at the theater or if they snuck them in, so you decide to stay put because last time the candy aisle only had Nerd Clusters and Sour Patch Kids as fruit gummy options and neither of those is worth $8 no matter how dire the candy emergency. Only in the case of the wine, you know you’re going to get to taste it in a moment, so all of the irritation is absent and the pleasure of having your personal space invaded by berries, cherries, plums, et al. is so much greater.
And so, the wine. In my glass is not a bushel bucket of fruit (or fruit snacks), but just a few ounces of liquid which is medium ruby with a thin brick-red edge. Aromas of blackberry, black cherry, strawberry candy, red plum jam, and boysenberry all burst forth with immoderate pride.
At first, it’s a challenge to smell anything but luscious, fleshy, concentrated pulp. But the high alcohol eventually wafts some black-pepper spices to the rim of the glass, and beefy aromas emerge to accompany them. (Peppered jerky might just be the best vending-machine food after berry fruit snacks…oh lordy, I know I’m going to like this wine.) There’s wood smoke–good-quality fruit wood, like what goes in a gourmet smoker box–and just a hint of violet candy.
Expectations are high. But this is not a wine that wallops your nose with everything it’s got, and then leaves your mouth unsatisfied. Oh no. It backs up its threats of deliciousness.
The first sip tastes thin and a little sanguine–but before I can worry about it, all the promised fruits come rushing forth, adding tart red currants and even red apple. Bright, medium acid and soft medium tannins are consistent with the slobber-worthy red-fruit flavors. A tiny hint of vanilla cream adds moderating smoothness–but this is not a heavily oaked wine, if at all. Not a trace of bitterness or unnecessary sugar. Just a long finish of fruit leather and beef leather, united at last.
Tasting the intensity of this wine, it’s hard to believe it wasn’t bottled yesterday. A wine expert once told me that under a screw cap, wine loses its fruit freshness to oxidation more slowly. That’s one reason that Australian Grenache (and specifically, quality bottles from McLaren Vale and Barossa) can retain such vibrancy while still developing tertiary notes from bottle age. It is indeed an awesome superpower that these wines possess–even cooler than Jeff Bridges’ monster-hunting mage powers in Seventh Son.
I don’t remember where I bought this Aussie gem. But I suspect it was The Wine Authority. They know of my Grenache weakness and will sometimes try to upsell me when I’m cruising the bottom rack for a cheap Côtes du Rhône to go with dinner.
I did not chug this Mitolo with kebabs or pizza because it was costlier* than I usually allow for a takeout wine. Instead, I shoved it away behind a bunch of lesser bottles to accidentally re-discover later for a special occasion. There it stayed for (probably) a year.
I bet I would have hoarded this wine even longer, but my wife pulled it out of our joint wine stash and served it to me as blind tasting practice. I called it as a Southern Rhône cru–which was incorrect, but I’m not mad about it because it really does drink like good Châteauneuf-du-Pape at like, a third of the price. And I also messed up on the vintage. But I’m not mad at myself for that call either, because the fruit tastes much, much fresher than I would’ve guessed for a 2017.
*Mitolo’s “7th Son” retails for about $40 here. But the current vintage is available in Australia for the equivalent of $18 USD, which is enough to make me want to hop on a plane and bring an empty suitcase.
Bottle: Mitolo “7th Son” McLaren Vale Grenache-Shiraz (2017)
Variety: Grenache (60%), Shiraz (35%), Sagrantino (5%)
ABV: 14.5%
Suggested retail: $41.99
My rating: 9.3 (out of 10)
Review disclosure: I was not compensated or provided any free products for this review. Opinions expressed on The Wine Fairy blog are entirely my own.
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