Sunday, October 20, 2019

Mollydooker Blue Eyed Boy Shiraz 2012

Mollydooker Blue Eyed Boy Shiraz 2012

One might say this is one of our signature wines for our son Alec, along with 'Alec's Blend from Napa Lewis Cellars. We pulled this from the cellar for sipping with cheese, fruit and chocolate with a Saturday night movie as we prepare to go visit in Alec in NYC this week.

This is a full throttle powerful high octane Shiraz. If you think that is over the top with the superlatives, try this wine. It's actually over the top for my liking and I like big bold style wine. Linda actually likes this style. some Cellartrackers talked about using the Mollydooker Shake on this wine. No wonder the producer introduced the Mollydooker 'shake' where they actually prescribe shaking the bottle before opening to awaken or to settle the fruit! We own and drink a lot of their wine and I have never gotten into the habit of doing so, perhaps tonight we should have!

Reading up on the Mollydooker Shake, it is prescribed only for still red wines of two years of age or less. It is to release the nitrogen in the bottle that they use instead of the normal sulphites commonly used to preserve wines.  Sulphites can cause an allergic asthma type reaction in some people and Mollydooker realise a lot of people are sensitive to them. So, wherever they can, they use nitrogen to protect the wine so that they can reduce the amount of sulphites.

We served an earlier vintage release of this wine at a graduation celebration for Alec back in his college apartment.

This was dark blackish inky purple, full bodied, powerful, rich forward fruit of super ripe savoury extracted raisin, notes of expresso coffee, soy and anise, with a bit of heat with almost a medicinal or metallic layer. I wonder if this is indicative of this vintage or if perhaps we held it a bit too long, or perhaps this is an aberrant bottle. We have some more of this vintage and will watch it carefully.

The pundits and Cellartracker collectors give this 92 points. I give it 88.

https://www.cellartracker.com/wine.asp?iWine=1762926

https://www.mollydookerwines.com.au/default.aspx