Wow. This is a wine of supers.

Super dark ruby color.
Super strong barnyard (ok, worse than barnyard) nose after first opening, but it doesn't subside too much after two hours either....

Let's have this one decant for awhile longer.... this is indeed a young wine after all.

The barnyard nose is slowly giving way to dark mocha infused fruits, but after 6 hours, the barnyard aromoas are still very present.

So let's move to the palate. Very strong flavors of this extremely full bodied and super concentrated wine. Earth, slate, licorice... This is a terrior dominated wine in its early stage with super concentrated blue and black fruits balancing out the acidity. Mocha, blueberry, plum, cherry all took a long while to come out of this super intense wine. Nicely round tannins are thick and a little drying on the aftertaste.

If you get one thing from this TN, it's that THIS WINE NEEDS CELLARING. This needs time to develop and fully integrate. I'm not familiar with how well Barossa valley (edit: oops, it's McLaren Vale) shiraz ages (yet, but I will be) but I'd expect this wine to need at least 6 years.

Rev rates it 94+. I believe there is hidden gold in this wine, but I wouldn't open another for a very long time. If you do decide to open, decant!

rev-

Is this from the Barossa Valley?

Rev is right about the need to decant this. I opened a bottle of this in Steamboat over Christmas. At the end of the evening, I would recork the bottle and try again the next day. No Vacuvin or anything. I drank this primarily over four nights, but there was a little left over that I forgot about, and drank again on night eight.

The barnyard on the nose had mostly blown off: on night three! This was drinking at its best on nights three and four, with no signs of oxidation. It did survive through night eight, but did have noticeable oxidation at that point.

I will agree with Rev's notes, with one addition. I did notice the heat in this wine, on the nose and the palate. The heat was noticeable even on nights four and eight, never really seemed to go away. There was more noticeable heat in this wine than the three others I drank over the same four nights, the 2002 MP 9, 2001 Henry's Drive Reserve Shiraz, and the 2002 Kaseler Stonehorse Shiraz.

I think this wine has a chance to make old bones, but I am concerned about the alcohol. Still, I think I will pick up a couple more bottles to age at the price I found locally (I think it was $38 or so).

Mike

Dr. T... Actually no. Not sure why I remembered it like that. It's McLaren Vale.

mbansek, this is interesting. I actually didn't notice the heat at all, but I didn't have it open for days either. At only 14.5% (only... hehehe) I thought it was very well balanced. I have noticed other wines like the Shirvington get extremely hot with too much air.. maybe the same thing happened with the Mitolo?

I have 1/3 bottle left after vacu-vinning... I'll report back on it tonight or tomorrow.

Thanks for the notes gents - I'll let this and the Savitar rest for a while.

Rev:

Please do report back. I even noticed the heat upon first opening, not just later nights. Other than the alcohol, it was a very enjoyable wine.

Mike

Further reports suggest this wine was full of brett. Perhaps someone else can try one if they have enough. The barnyard smell was just too overwhelming and is nothing like the 2001.

However, the rating would still stand for now... it really showed it had a lot underneath. We'll see.

I agree with Rev after trying a sip last night. It was very delicious on the palate, but still a wee bit funky on the nose. I wouldn't go as high as 94, but 90 pts sounds about right. Might have been different if I had tried it on night one though.

jb