You’ve all heard a tale or two about a retailer and sommelier who turns their hand to winemaking. But not every retailer and sommelier possess the same rare gifts as Mitch Sokolin, who cut his teeth at the Michelin-starred likes of Acquerello and Michael Mina in San Fran. You might also recognise his name from down in Melbourne, where he co-owned and managed the epicentre of Eastern European excellence that was Gray and Gray until its February closure (RIP).
The man has made wine here, there and everywhere, from Barolo to Georgia to Castilla y Léon – and, for the last decade, here in the Great Southern Land under the Eleven Sons moniker. Grapes are sourced from conscious growers, mostly from South Australia’s Limestone Coast and Victorian Pyrenees, and the wines are carved from instinct and intuition as opposed to expectation or tradition.
In his hands, semillon becomes a wine of fleshy texture and developed body in the 2023 Cabane Beige, which almost has a topped-up Jura thing going on in amongst the swish of green apple, bread dough, grapefruit zest and green olive brine. Coastal. Compelling. That same seaside character looms large in the 2023 Mayzons Blonshes - A Thousand Plateaus of Chardonnay. Long name, knockout wine: chalky, slightly oxidative and chock full of crushed-shell and honey-nut character, rocking quite a racy acid line.
The Big Blue, it seems, is a recurring theme, present yet again in his 2023 grüner veltliner, dubbed The Oceanic Feeling. A little whole-bunch work goes a long way, adding light and shade to the frame of green apples, talc, chamomile, lime leaf and fennel seeds. And while you might expect touriga nacional to wallop you, his 2023 Tu Rigoles? re-casts the Portuguese red in a pretty and very lean light, perfumed with purple flowers, woody spice and crushed stones. Chill it down, drink it up.