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NOTES
Jane and Andrew Mitchell established the winery in 1975 on the Mitchell family property in the western hills of the Clare Valley in South Australia. An old sandstone apple store was converted to serve as a rustic cellar door sales area. Continued growth has resulted in further development of the winery buildings and winemaking plant.
The grapes for Mitchell wines come from the company’s four local vineyards. Varieties planted are Riesling, Semillon, Shiraz, Merlot, Grenache and Cabernet. Vine age ranges from as little as five to over fifty five years. Soils are red-brown loam and clay over limestone. The altitude of these vineyards is between 300 and 400 metres and the average rainfall in the vicinity of 600mm, falling mostly in the winter (May–September).
The largest vineyard is located at Watervale, several kilometres south of the winery. This vineyard was acquired in 1995 and is planted with 50 year old dry grown Grenache and Riesling grapes. Set on the exposed eastern slopes of undulating hills, with long rows of vines, this can be a very bleak place in the middle of winter at pruning time. This has led to it becoming known among the vineyard workers as Alcatraz - a place to do penance in the cold, wind and rain of a Clare winter. Alcatraz is particularly suited to the Riesling variety. The other major vineyard is at the winery site at Sevenhill. Planted entirely to red grapes: Cabernet, Merlot and Cabernet Franc, this is the source vineyard for the Mitchell Cabernet.
TASTING NOTES
This wine takes its name from the old peppertree which grows in the Shiraz vineyard at Watervale. It is a happy coincidence that the nose and palate of the Peppertree Shiraz show the spicy peppery characters of high class Shiraz wines. The grapes are picked at optimum ripeness and fermented on their skins to extract maximum flavours and characters. Careful aging for about 18 months in small French oak barrels adds complexity to the finished wine. The wine is full flavoured and has a soft, almost velvety palate which makes the wine very easy to drink in its youth. The underlying quality and structure of the wine gives it the capacity, however, to mature and improve for many years in the cellar. All in all, this is a wine which shows the virtues of Shiraz as a premium grape variety.
OTHER REVIEWS
A restrained approach invests the wine with elegance and length; fine, supple mouthfeel; fine tannins, good length, controlled oak. Screwcap. 14.5%. 93 Points, James Halliday, Australian Wine Companion 2009
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