Until the year 2005 I had basically only very few points of contact with wine and then almost exclusively – as described at the beginning of In Vino Veritas – with the “reds”.  The first bottles – the ones that were my taste buds for Australian wine, were two bottles of Pertaringa (Shiraz) from the year 2000.

I took the first of the two bottles with me to a party in 2004 in my “youthful carelessness” – in retrospect it was certainly a mistake, even if the wine was well received there.

The second and unfortunately last bottle I opened in 2011 with much more awe. In advance I contacted the winery in Australia to find out if I should open the wine “already” – well, the Australians love their wine “fresh” and let me know that waiting even longer would be a shame.

When the bottle was opened, I quickly realized how little can be in a bottle. We enjoyed it in a small group with an excellent steak – the wine was now amber and from my point of view of incomparable quality but just too little.

But now let’s go back another few years – after I became aware of what I had “wasted” for a delicious wine in 2004, I decided to take a closer look in the future.

That’s how I got to know my first Mollydooker in 2007 when I visited a restaurant in Leverkusen. Who would have thought that Leverkusen which does not exactly carry the title of culinary promise would be the place to be…but it was a nice evening in the restaurant “Zum Löwen”. At the end was given to me a still closed bottle of Boxer 2005 by the sommelier – in this moment the foundation stone for a liaison lasting until today was laid.

At that time, the boxer was still a “rising star” and for this reason rather difficult to get. Since I wanted to have the 2005 vintage, I contacted first the winery Mollydooker in Australia (very nice webpage: https://www.mollydookerwines.com.au/) – but unfortunately, it was already sold out there and nowhere available in Germany. In my “need” I then turned to weinlakai.de (Tobias Treppenhauer) and he was able to put me in touch with a Danish wine-dealer (Tom L. Pedersen from atomwine.dk). Tom miraculously left me a few crates from his stock and so began my eleven-year “wine trip” to the worlds of Shiraz – especially Australian.

These first bottles have held from 2008 to 2013, in spite of the increase in value of course I have not sold any of them and only in moments of great affection some dear friends the one or the other to let.

Since then I have been able to enjoy many different Mollydooker wines and vintages – and of course there have been preferences for certain wines and vintages too.

Currently I buy my Mollydooker wines at Niklas von Aixvinum in Aachen – a wonderful person with whom I can share the love for these noble wines without restrictions.

A peculiarity of Mollydooker wines has proven to be particularly advantageous for me over the years – the wines are, so to speak, suitable for allergy sufferers. Anyone who has enjoyed one or the other red wine in company from time to time knows the problem of “spontaneous red cheeks”. The females in particular often reacts in different ways to red wines and therefore drink them less or with reservation.

For allergic reactions or intolerances (headaches, reddening, nausea, etc.) the sulphur is usually responsible, which is added during bottling to protect the wine from oxidation.

Up to 25% of the sulphur is then contained in the result as sulphurous acid (or as sulphide) in the wine itself and leads to intolerances.

Well, Mollydooker decided very early on to close his wines with the help of nitrogen during bottling, so there is much less sulphur in these wines than with other producers.

Mollydooker wines are closed with screw caps – I know real wine connoisseurs swear by corks – but such a good screw cap as Mollydooker is always better than the usual everyday corks. I prefer the screw cap to inferior corks – especially since I also have the advantage of being able to store the bottles upright and they do not have to be re-corked over the years.

Another special feature that makes wine connoisseurs sweat is the Mollydooker Shake. The Mollydooker Shake is based on pouring a glass out of the just opened bottle (important not to drink yet) – so that the filling level still reaches the shoulder of the bottle, then screw it and then – like a bartender a cocktail – easily shake. In the bottle thereupon foam develops from the nitrogen released by the shaken.

After opening the bottle again, the released nitrogen evaporates and the foam disappears – this is repeated several times until almost no more foam forms and then fill the wine out of the bottle into a decanter of your choice, for example.

Now you should pour the result into a second glass and then compare both variants – I bet everyone with a tongue for wine will assume it is different wines.

The effect is really unique – the aroma and the unique flavours have been formally released in the whacked variant – and you can clearly taste this. A video tutorial can be found at https://youtu.be/4xTw6nOj80k on YouTube.

But attention, for this only Mollydooker wines without carbonic acid are suitable naturally!

For vintages that are older than four to five years and that may already have some sediment, you have to proceed differently. Either you wait sufficiently long after the shake or you decant the wine into a bottle which you can also use for shaking before it finally goes into the decanter.

Important: A pure decanting – no matter how “great” the decanter may be – will never be enough to awaken the whole taste of a Mollydooker wine!

My current Mollydooker favourites are in vintage order:

• Boxer (Shiraz) [2005, 2006, 2008, 2015, 2013, 2016, 2012 & 2017]
• Carnival of Love (Shiraz) [2010, 2012 & 2013]
• Velvet Glove (Shiraz) [2010, 2011 & 2016]
• Enchanted Path (Shiraz Cabernet) [2005, 2006 & 2010]
• Blue Eyed Boy (Shiraz) [2005, 2006, 2009, 2010, 2014 & 2016]
• Two Left Feet (Shiraz Cabernet) [2006, 2010]

Of course, the respective vintages play a role here – but basically you can hardly do anything wrong with Mollydooker wines. Some of the wines are also made in such a way that they are suitable for vegan enjoyment.

In connection with Mollydooker wines often terms like left-handed or left-footy are used – in Australian slang one speaks of a person who is left-handed – a Molly-Dooker. It can also be that you are left “footy” after a little too much wine – see the cover of the Two Left Feet.

That someone with two left hands should have been at work pressing the wine is not evident from the quality of the drops.

So far at this point how I found wine and why Mollydooker became my favourite vineyard.

I will write down my experiences from my visit to the winery in Australia 2018 in a separate article.

Until then, have fun – maybe with a glass of Mollydooker.