I decided to research the actual garden tool, the Mattock (thanks again to Google) and I was a bit surprised, and a little confused, as to its history.  I won’t bore you with it all but part of the (Wikipedia) blurb that stuck out to me was, “Mattocks are the most commonly depicted tool in Byzantine manuscripts of Greek poet Hesiod’s Works and Days”.  If you didn’t already know, Bob and Rita Richter also have a white wine named Byzantine.  Now I don’t know if this is pure coincidence or not but I reckon it’s a great connection into their world of wine.

Merlot makes up the majority of this wine coming in at 60%, with Malbec making up 40% and Cabernet Franc providing very good support, even if it is only 10% of the makeup.

It exudes very nice and attractive, fresh dark fruit aromas that gave me a pretty good insight into what I thought I was about to taste.  Black fruits are the mainstays with blackberries and blackcurrants shining through, then ‘hello’ to supportive plum characters on the abundant palate (but not rich if you know what I mean).  Definitely not shy on flavour that’s for sure.  It has a fairly long finish where some earthiness and tannin poke through but did not take anything away from the excellent fruit.

It is a very well made, flavoursome and balanced wine with the structure to age very well.  I’m going to go out on a limb and say, if my memory serves me correctly, this is probably the best Mattock out of the 4 vintages released and I’ve been lucky enough to try them all.

Grey Sands Website

Region: Glengarry, Tasmania     Price: $45     Source: Sample thanks to Grey Sands