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Swinney Mourvèdre 2023

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Swinney Mourvèdre 2023
Swinney Mourvèdre 2023
Producer Swinney
Region, Country Frankland River, Australia
Bottle Size 750ml
Case Size 6
Product Code 23784-750

This is the third straight Mourvèdre bottling, and wine is basking in the spotlight. Swinney’s Mourvèdre is drawn from dry-grown bush vines on Wilsons Pool Vineyard, planted in the early 2000s on rich gravelly-loam soils. The fruit was picked by hand when flavour and tannin were perfectly ripe, then sorted berry by berry and transferred via gravity to a single stainless-steel fermenter. Bunches were bumped up a touch this year—a well-judged 30% highlighting the variety’s “distinctive ferrous qualities, fine structure and wild spice”. It spent 11 days on skins before being pressed to fine-grained large-format French oak, where it matured for 11 months.

Mann says Swinney’s Mourvèdre is the wine that most clearly expresses the site’s signature ferrous, rusty nail character. Violet, lavender, and blue/blackberries provide the lift, with salumi, pepper, and gravel tugging below. The palate is plush and bright, with a line of sweet, pure fruit and powdery tannins puffing out across the back and extending the graphite and iron mineral notes wide and long.

Swinney Mourvèdre 2023
Swinney Mourvèdre 2023

Reviews

“Yet another remarkable Rhone variety expressed perfectly from Frankland River. The aim appears to have been to present this as true a reflection of the vineyard as possible. It’s from bush vines and then a combination of whole bunches to build structure, wild fermentation to build texture and then finishing off for 11 months on lees in older French oak. It all contributes to a beautifully expressive wine capturing the distinctive ferrous regionality and the soft supple fruit of the variety with a little dried herb and sage bush lift.”
95 points, Ray Jordan, rayjordanwine.com.au
“This is about as polished an expression of Mourvèdre as you will come by. It’s meaty, floral, dark berried, nutty and lightly infused with fragrant herbs, but as much as this it’s characterised by its firm, svelte form. It feels good in the mouth. It feels polished. It finishes with a dry, fruit-filled certainty. It has an admirable freshness as well, and for all its complexity it somehow manages a grapey quality. That’s a good thing. And this is a very good wine.”
94 points, Campbell Mattinson, The Wine Front
“A very fine example of the variety – deeply flavoured, touched with floral and game meat aspects, distinctly herbal and savoury and yet imbued with pitch-black berry fruitiness. It's svelte in the palate, almost a pinosity but for the variety's somewhat gruff exterior and tendency to earthiness and dusty tannins. Beautifully balanced and epic in drinking.”
95 points, Mike Bennie, The Wine Companion
“The 2023 Mourvèdre is a masterclass in elegance: here, we have silty tannins, crushed rocks and spices, dried herbs, sumac, pomegranate and ferrous notes. This is lingering still, and I have more to write without tasting it yet again. The tannins feel smashed into the fruit, pulverized, obliterated within it, and they linger long after the wine has left the mouth. It is chewy, ashy, floral and distinct—super, what a treat. Varietal Mourvèdre can be a wonderful thing, as this is. It was produced with 30% whole bunches, fermented with wild yeast and spent 11 days on the skins prior to pressing to fine-grained, large-format French oak for 11 months of élevage. 13.7% alcohol, sealed under screw cap.”
95 points, Erin Larkin, The Wine Advocate

Reviews

“Yet another remarkable Rhone variety expressed perfectly from Frankland River. The aim appears to have been to present this as true a reflection of the vineyard as possible. It’s from bush vines and then a combination of whole bunches to build structure, wild fermentation to build texture and then finishing off for 11 months on lees in older French oak. It all contributes to a beautifully expressive wine capturing the distinctive ferrous regionality and the soft supple fruit of the variety with a little dried herb and sage bush lift.”
95 points, Ray Jordan, rayjordanwine.com.au
“This is about as polished an expression of Mourvèdre as you will come by. It’s meaty, floral, dark berried, nutty and lightly infused with fragrant herbs, but as much as this it’s characterised by its firm, svelte form. It feels good in the mouth. It feels polished. It finishes with a dry, fruit-filled certainty. It has an admirable freshness as well, and for all its complexity it somehow manages a grapey quality. That’s a good thing. And this is a very good wine.”
94 points, Campbell Mattinson, The Wine Front
“A very fine example of the variety – deeply flavoured, touched with floral and game meat aspects, distinctly herbal and savoury and yet imbued with pitch-black berry fruitiness. It's svelte in the palate, almost a pinosity but for the variety's somewhat gruff exterior and tendency to earthiness and dusty tannins. Beautifully balanced and epic in drinking.”
95 points, Mike Bennie, The Wine Companion
“The 2023 Mourvèdre is a masterclass in elegance: here, we have silty tannins, crushed rocks and spices, dried herbs, sumac, pomegranate and ferrous notes. This is lingering still, and I have more to write without tasting it yet again. The tannins feel smashed into the fruit, pulverized, obliterated within it, and they linger long after the wine has left the mouth. It is chewy, ashy, floral and distinct—super, what a treat. Varietal Mourvèdre can be a wonderful thing, as this is. It was produced with 30% whole bunches, fermented with wild yeast and spent 11 days on the skins prior to pressing to fine-grained, large-format French oak for 11 months of élevage. 13.7% alcohol, sealed under screw cap.”
95 points, Erin Larkin, The Wine Advocate

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