Vineyard Notes
The G.A.M. Shiraz comes from the Chinese Block vineyard which is located in the Willunga district at the southern end of McLaren Vale. The soils, which are heavy grey loam soils over sandstone, intermixed with black Biscay clay, combined with the maritime climate, contribute to an even ripening period and the development of rich fruit flavours and ripe tannins.
Style
Mitolo delivers wines that express purity of varietal flavour, show elegance of structure with soft tannins whilst being rich, powerful and complex. All the grapes are picked on flavour ripeness which contributes to the soft, ripe tannins and vibrant fruit which is a key characteristic of all Mitolo wines. G.A.M. is opulent and robust, with a focus on finesse and multilayered complexity. It exhibits typical Mitolo softness and richness.
Winemaker Notes
Each parcel of fruit for G.A.M. was fermented on skins for 10 days at cool & warm temperatures. The cool temperature assists in making the finished wine more approachable and the warm temperature gives more structure. G.A.M. uses a blend of the two. The wine was then pressed and underwent partial barrel fermentation followed by malolactic fermentation before racking.
Tasting Notes
Appearance
Deep, vibrant crimson red
Bouquet
Lifted pure aromatics of darker berry fruits and spice: blackberries, plums, mocha, toasty vanilla oak.
Palate
The palate is powerful and extremely focussed with great depth of fruit character that is well framed by fine grain tannin, and drawn together to a long finish by naturally balanced acidity.
Maturation
Aged in fine grained oak predominantly hogsheads (70% new being a blend of 80% French and 20% French coopered American oak plus 30% being one and two year old French/American oak) for 16 months. A total of 16 coopers are used for the Mitolo oak regime.
Cellaring
Will age reliably for 10 years.
Vintage Note
The growing season began with a wet August followed by a dry spring resulting in an earlier start than normal and strong canopy growth. At Mitolo’s Lopestri vineyard, this strong growth along with sound management techniques and an inherent understanding of the vines allowed the fruit to survive a long spike of heat at the end of January virtually unscathed. Conditions around this heat were actually quite mild; ideal for grape ripening. Shiraz displayed excellent varietal character with naturally balanced acidity.
