Mollydooker Redux

When I started this whole adventure, my first post was about Mollydooker's The Boxer; and although I haven't completely changed my mind, I have modified my view of this particular wine and the others produced by these winemakers. My friend Adam and I were talking about this and, without any collusion, we both reached the same conclusion (I feel like Jesse Jackson here). Now, before I get too far down this road, let me say that I still like these wines very much. I just wonder whether Robert Parker's ravings about them accounts for some of my blind faith and the dog in heat way I went looking for them. When I found them and tasted them, I really liked these wines. When I went back to them...not as much. That's where I am right now.

The Boxer (RP95) was a lot of fun to drink and when I first drank it, as I said, I loved it as well as its more highly rated and acclaimed sister, The Carnival of Love (RP99). They are round, full-flavored fruit bombs. But I have continued to drink both and maybe the best way to describe their shortcomings is with one word, "too". There's just too much flavor, almost like lobster soaked in melted butter. A little butter can really help the taste, too much turns you off. That's the feeling I had when I went back to these wines, particularly when compared side-by-side with Penfold's RWT and Shirvington Shiraz, which I did the other day. Neither of the 'dooker's offerings were quite as good (my favorite of the 4 was the Shirvington).

Maybe there is something to what the critics say about this type of winemaking, that there is a certain sameness (homogeneity??) to tastes and flavors of these wines which, in hindsight, is a little disappointing. This is not a criticism of this style of winemaking, which clearly turns out a great product. They just seem like they were put together in a way that is lacking something, a soul, a depth, terroir (?), something.

Truth: Most franco-oeniphiles, particularly self-described ones, would rather drink wine that tastes like dirt and cat piss and call it "terroir". There’s a book called Noble Rot all about the French wine thing and how many of the “traditional” French wine people hate Parker for, among other things, making wine accessible to the masses and forcing winemakers to make wines that appeal to the unsophisticated Americal pallet. Homogenization aside, they hate anything that modernizes or improved the making of wine. I can taste a left bank wine from a great chateau and know what I am supposed to like about it, but sometimes these wines just taste like dirt and smell like cat piss.

New world wines can be phenomenal. Better than French and, with the exception of California Cabs, remarkably affordable for those of who don't want to/can't spend $40.00 and up for a bottle of wine (or whose spouse won't let us...). Look around at lesser known French, South American and other Southern hemisphere vineyards and you'll find great wines at almost every price point.

Bottom line, the Mollydookers are very good and certainly worth the current price (about $30/btl), but probably not worth all the rest of hype or the 95+ scores. I'll keep drinking and enjoying the 'dooker, but it makes me think that maybe there is something to this whole "terroir" thing after all.