2024 Ministry of Clouds
McLaren Vale Mencía

The Next Big Thing?...

Every now and then a grape variety quietly captures your imagination.

For us, Mencía did exactly that. Native to the rugged hillsides of northwestern Spain, it combines fragrance, freshness and structure in a way that feels remarkably at home in McLaren Vale’s Mediterranean climate. Like so many of the Iberian varieties we've come to admire, it offers both resilience in the vineyard and elegance in the glass, bringing medium weight but maximum interest..

Planted into the coolest pocket of The Chase, Mencía has found a natural home amongst the fractured rock and cooling evening breezes of the Onkaparinga Gorge. It consistently delivers hauntingly aromatic wines of energy, and quiet complexity, that seem made for lamb lollipop chops cooked over fire, gnawing with one hand, and sipping with the other..

The pronunciation may still puzzle a few people.

But the wine never does.