Blue Eye’d Boy McLaren Vale Shiraz 2020
Linda picked up a selection of artisan cheeses and asked for one of ‘her’ wines for pairing. ‘Her’ wines refers to her preferred, favored style; big, bold, concentrated, rich, structured forward fruit filled - ala a McLaren Vale Aussie, Northern Rhone or Santa Barbara Santa Ynez Valley Shiraz, or an occasional Washington Columbia Valley or Sonoma/Napa label.
So, I pulled from the cellar one of our favorite go-to labels, that happens to the ‘signature’ wine of our son, Alec - “Blue Eye’d Boy” from Mollydooker.
This is one of our favorite such labels that we enjoy with hearty meals like BBQ, or robust cheeses such as tonight.
This is one of several labels from this prolific producer that we collect. Producer Mollydooker offer a brand and portfolio of whimsical labels, each featuring a cartoonish character on the label. Even the brand name, Mollydooker, which is Australian lingo for a left-handed person, is a comical play on words, named for the two left handed owner/producers/founders Sarah and Sparky Marquis. I chronicled Mollydooker brand and portfolio in a recent blogpost.
Mollydooker is in scenic McLaren Vale, 30 minutes easy drive from Adelaide. Bordered by the Adelaide Hills and five minutes away from glorious beaches.
I developed a special affinity for this wine in recent years. I managed a portfolio of software products used globally, My Australian representative was based in Adelaide who I got to know well over the years and I learned a great deal about life in the region. He was a racing car enthusiast and was a racing buddy of Sparky Marquis, so named for his enthusiasm for race cars, namesake to Marquis-Philips, the predecessor brand to Mollydooker. He surrendered his stake in the wine business when he separated from Sara.
The Mollydooker vineyards are situated on the magical Seaview Ridge, which with its ancient soils and Mediterranean climate, is home to some of the most iconic Australian wines. Mollydooker have three separate vineyards – Long Gully Road, Coppermine Road and the Home Blocks, giving us a total of 114 acres of Shiraz, Cabernet and Merlot.
As I wrote in that earlier blogpost, the Mollydooker "Family Series" labels features photos of Sara Marquis' two children. The 'Blue Eyed Boy' label shows Sarah’s son Luke, shown stomping grapes as a kid, who now heads up the Mollydooker Sales Team.
We love this full-throttle shiraz and collect it as part of our Mollydooker portfolio and as part of our Alec collection of labels we keep on hand to toast son Alec. We served an earlier vintage release of this wine at a graduation celebration for Alec back in his college apartment.
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 but perhaps we should!
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.
Mollydooker Blue Eye’d Boy McLaren Vale Shiraz 2020
We've written often in these pages about the fun we have with this label and the rest of the Mollydooker portfolio of wines. Here is a selection of several previous posts on the subject:
We hold more than a half dozen vintages of this label and this is the one of the newest, latest release which we're trying here for the first time.
This release was sourced from Vineyards across McLaren Vale, Coppermine Road, Gateway, Long Gully Road & Mollydooker Home estate, and the Joppich Vineyard in Langhorne Creek.
Winemaker notes for this release - “The 2020 Blue Eyed Boy is rich, ripe and explosive, this Shiraz displays vibrant blueberry, plum and notes of dark chocolate. A voluptuous palate of blue and black fruit layered with coffee, vanilla cream and liquorice spice. A beautiful balanced wine that has a round and creamy finish, the Blue Eyed Boy exceeds all expectations.”
Winemaker production notes - “We aim to make 80,000 dozen cases of wine each vintage. The tank farm, barrel hall and crushing area are our cellar team's pride and joy. We've got a 1500 tonne crushing capacity, but we only crush just over 1200 tonnes so that the team has plenty of time to mollycoddle the wines, and to keep the winery spick and span.”
It was barrel fermented and matured and aged in 100% American oak, 54% new; 46% 1yr old.
Marquis Fruit Weight - Required: 75% - 85%, Actual: 79%
Marquis Fruit Weight™ is the percentage of your palate (from the tip of your tongue going all the way back) that's covered by the velvety sensation of fruit, before you
experience any of the structural components of the wine.
This 2020 release was rated 93 points by Wine Spectator and Robert Parker's Wine Advocate.
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate wrote - “This 2020 Blue Eyed Boy Shiraz is a fascinating wine to me, in that it offers everything that I might find challenging in one glass (high alcohol at 16%, prominent American oak and volumes of generous, abundantly concentrated, extracted fruit), yet it does so in such a way that I end up appreciating the construction and the execution despite my stylistic preferences.”
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate wrote an interesting observation about this label, comparing the 2020 and 2021 vintages; "Once you taste a few of a producer's wines side by side, you really start to get a feel for stylistic preference between warm vintages and cool ones. I surprise myself by saying here that I prefer the warmer vintages at Mollydooker (this does not make it right) because the sunshine and ease with which ripening can occur in a warmer year really seems to suit the plush, high-octane style being proliferated here. So, this 2021 Blue Eyed Boy Shiraz is far more on the blue fruit spectrum than the 2020 ..."
“The key here is comparisons of this same label from vintage to vintage, and contrasting the resulting impact from a warm vintage vs a cool vintage. Such distinctions are best revealed through comparison tastings of one vintage alongside another or others - what is referred to as a 'vertical' tasting (as opposed to 'horizontal tasting' which would be various wines from the same vintage). “
This was dark inky blackish purple garnet colored, full bodied, dense, concentrated, extracted rich fruit, yet balanced and approachable, despite its 16% high alcohol content, black and blue berry and pomegranate fruits accented by dark chocolate, licorice, anise and dark coffee with hints of creosote and oaky vanilla with dense full tannins on the long finish.
RM 92 points.
