Brutal Review

[pc79]

Live by the review, die by the review.

Mollydooker made their name and fortune with a strong review and ridiculously high score from Robert Parker. They have continued to make wines in that same style, one which has arguably tarnished and pigeon holed Australian red wine and represented it in a bad light. For an international consumer, heavy fruit, high alcohol, high oak etc has been a trademark of Australian reds. Times have changed and many consumers aren't overly interested in the lauded styles of early 2000s Australian/Barossa Shiraz. Wines such as Mollydooker, Torbreck, Greenock Creek and Chris Ringland were favoured by those stupidly high scores way back when and have priced their wines to a point whereby the pinnacle of Australian wine from a price perspective include these names.

Personally I somewhat blame RP for pushing these behemoth wines to the international public. A reputation has been created and it is difficult to break away from. Hats of to Jancis for getting down and dirty with some new producers/varying regions and understanding of the whole range of Australian wines.

The current style of Mollydooker is not to everyones taste, and certainly not to the reviewers.

[swirler]

Yes, MD and the like made hay while the sun was shining, but were partly responsible for creating the skewed view of Aussie wine - it's all warm climate, big, alcoholic, oaky, concentrated and only from South Australia. Jancis is just one of many enlightened critics who are trying to tell the whole story.

And, yes, because of the above MD do deserve a backlash IMO. Awful drink.