Recently I had the opportunity to visit Mollydooker Wines Cellar Door in McLaren Vale South Australia and what a great visit it was. Whilst not all of the wines were great the way that our wine tasting was organised and conducted was excellent. The only thing you could ask for to improve the experience was to taste Mollydooker Wines’ Velvet Glove, which I am sure we might have gotten lucky with if we had more time.

Does anyone know where the name Mollydooker comes? The answer is at the end of this post.

Mollydooker Wines

From their website:

OUR WINERY & VINEYARDS

Our winery is in beautiful scenic McLaren Vale, 30 minutes easy drive from Adelaide. Bordered by the Adelaide Hills and five minutes away from glorious beaches, McLaren Vale is a great place to come visit. It is like a big village, we all know one another, and we all love having visitors. The food here is fabulous, fresh and local, and we have a thriving artistic community.

‘The region is so effortless in the fun-loving lifestyle it exudes, that I always feel a little guilty visiting the area for ‘work’. Lisa Perrotti-Brown, The Wine Advocate.

Our 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. We 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. All of our grapes are grown sustainably.

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.

For more of their story, which is worth a read, please check out:

• Where It All Began
• The Wow Factor

As a part of the research for this post I found out that there is more to Mollydooker Wines than just their wines, they are also into giving back, they support a number of charities.

From their website:

Our passion is wine, business, relationships, and enjoying life. A big part of what we do is to pass on our incredible blessings by supporting charities which are close to our hearts. Some of these which wake us up excited every day are:

• Transform Cambodia
• Mercy Multiplied, USA
• Hutt Street Centre, Aus
• Chester County Futures, USA

Cellar Door Tasting

A tasting at the Mollydooker Wines Cellar Door costs AUD5, which is actually a donation to a local Adelaide charity, the Hutt Street Center,  a nice way to raise money for a good cause.

The wines that are a part of the tasting flight is everything on their list with the exception of the Velvet Glove, 12 different wines in total. My reviews of the wines we tasted are below, we missed a few because we were on a schedule and I did not expect we would have needed the extra time, my fault!!

Their Wines

• Summer of ’69 Early Harvest Verdelho – Tasted
• Girl on the Go Sparkling Verdelho – Tasted
• Miss Molly Sparkling Shiraz – Tasted
• Violinist Verdelho – Tasted
• The Scooter Merlot – Tasted
• The Boxer Shiraz – Tasted
• The Maitre D’ Cabernet Sauvignon
• Two Left Feet Shiraz Cabernet Merlot
• Gigglepot Cabernet Sauvignon
• Blue Eyed Boy Shiraz – Tasted
• Enchanted Path Shiraz Cabernet Sauvignon
• Carnival of Love Shiraz – Tasted
• Velvet Glove Shiraz

Our tasting was conducted by June, a visiting Master of Wine student from Korea, when (and I am pretty sure he will become an MW) he will be the first Korean born / resident MW. Mollydooker Wines was the third of the wineries that June has worked at, prior to coming to McLaren Vale he was in France, apparently they have wine there too ;-).

Oz’s Ratings

Icon	wdt_ID	Rating	Description
	1	1 out of 5	Bug spray, good for cleaning or powering vehicles
	2	2 out of 5	Acceptable at a pinch (must be extremely desperate)
	3	2.5 out of 5	Drinkable, might improve with age or decanting, good for the last bottle of the night when there is nothing else available
	4	3 out of 5	A good wine, may improve with time, a quaffer
	5	3.5 out of 5	A very good wine, worth a try and probably a bit of patience if it is a young wine
	6	4 out of 5	A great wine! Recommended by Oz
	7	4.5 out of 5	A great wine, definitely one that Oz recommends!!
	11	5 out of 5	Amazing, WoW. Highly recommended, please give me more!

Oz’s Wine Reviews

The standout wine from this batch was the 2016 Carnival of Love Shiraz.

wdt_ID	Rating	Photo	Wine
1			> Name: Mollydooker Summer of '69 Year: 2017 Region: McLaren, South Australia, Australia Varietal: Verdelho Oz's Rating: 3 out 5 Pale yellow straw in colour with a pleasant mix of passionfruit and lychee aromas. The palate is crisp with an abundance of passionfruit and short finish. The Verdelho used in the Summer of '69 is harvested 10 days earlier than that used in their other Verdelhos and is only available at the cellar door. <
2			> > > Name: Mollydooker The Violinist Year: 2016 Region: McLaren, South Australia, Australia Varietal: Verdelho Oz's Rating: 3.5 out 5 Bright light green straw in colour with a nice combo of passionfruit and cut grass. The refreshing palate is balanced with a medium length finish. I enjoyed this more than the Summer of '69 <
3			> > Name: Mollydooker Girl on the Go Sparkling Year: NV Region: McLaren, South Australia, Australia Varietal: Verdelho Oz's Rating: 3.5 out 5 Bright mid-weight golden straw in colour, it has a minimal bead with small tight bubbles. The combination of crème brule and biscuit aromas is pleasant with a crisp palate with passionfruit flavours and a medium finish. Mollydooker use the same method as used to make Prosecco, the "Tank Method" <
4			> Name: Mollydooker The Scooter Year: 2016 Region: McLaren, South Australia, Australia Varietal: Merlot Oz's Rating: 3 out 5 The Scooter has a youthful deep crimson colour with a medium-bodied mix of blackberry, black pepper and spice aromas. The palate is also medium-bodied with savoury tannins and medium-long finish. <
5			> Name: Mollydooker Miss Molly Sparkling Year: 2016 Region: McLaren, South Australia, Australia Varietal: Shiraz Oz's Rating: 3 out 5 This wine has a youthful deep garnet colour with nearly no bead. An interesting mix of blackcurrant and spice aromas with a medium-bodied palate, firm tannins and a medium-long finish <
6			> > Name: Mollydooker The Boxer Year: 2016 Region: McLaren, South Australia, Australia Varietal: Shiraz Oz's Rating: 3.5 out 5 The Boxer has a rich, deep crimson colour with a pleasant combo of blackberry, white pepper and spice aromas, the palate is medium-bodied with savoury tannins and a medium-long finish. Enjoyed this, will be interesting to see how it evolves over the next few years <
7			> Name: Mollydooker Blue Eyed Boy Year: 2016 Region: McLaren, South Australia, Australia Varietal: Shiraz Oz's Rating: 3.5 out 5 Bright deep crimson in colour with an enjoyable mix of blackcurrant, black pepper and spice aromas. The medium-bodied palate is balanced with savoury tannins and a medium-long finish Another wine that will be interesting to see how it evolves. <
8			> Name: Mollydooker Carnival of Love Year: 2016 Region: McLaren, South Australia, Australia Varietal: Shiraz Oz's Rating: 4 out 5 Bright deep crimson in colour with a full-bodied. enjoyable combination of blackcurrant, bubble-gum, black pepper and spice aromas. This is a big wine with am interesting, balanced palate with evolving, savoury tannins and a long finish Not a bad drop, considering how young it is, drinking fairly well now, will be great with at least a few more years on it! <

Oz’s Wine Reviews

Mollydooker Wines Cellar Door

If you are in McLaren Vale, actually if you are in Adelaide it is only a  45 – 60 minute drive to McLaren Vale from the centre of Adelaide, a visit to Mollydooker Wines’ Cellar Door is a must. For 5 bucks you get the opportunity to go on a bit of a wine journey learning about the story behind each of the wines whilst tasting the 12 wines. Each wine is of a decent to very good quality and the stories behind each wine is worth a listen.

I will be back!

Oz’s Useless Trivia

What is a Mollydooker? Moollydooker is Australian slang for a left handed person. It is the combination of two old (nearly ancient) Aussie slang terms:

• Molly: Queer or odd
• Dook: Hand or fist

Cheers!