2025 Oliver’s Taranga Mencía | 95 Points & Gold Medal

🔥 95 Point Mencia | Australia's Pioneering Mencia Vineyard | One of McLaren Vale's Most Exciting Alternative Reds

Cherry. Blood plum. Blackberry. Potpourri. Sumac. Sarsaparilla. Savoury tannins.

If you've never tasted Mencia before, this is where I'd start.

95 Points – Halliday Wine Companion

Gold Medal – 2025 Australian Alternative Varieties Wine Show

100% McLaren Vale Mencia | Corrina Wright | Small Batch | RRP $37

This is why alternative varieties are so exciting in Australia. A grape most people have never heard of, planted in McLaren Vale by a family willing to take a chance — and now we're looking at a 95-point wine for $37.

The 2025 Oliver's Taranga Mencia is something genuinely different.

And more importantly:

It's bloody delicious.

What the Hell Is Mencia?

Mencia — pronounced roughly Men-thee-ah — is a red grape native to northwestern Spain, most famously associated with Bierzo.

If you haven't tried it before, don't worry.

Most Australian wine drinkers haven't.

But that needs to change.

Mencia can produce incredibly attractive reds combining:

Cherry

Blackberry

Florals

Savoury herbs

Spice

Fresh acidity

Fine, grippy tannins

It's juicy without being simple.

Fragrant without being delicate.

Savoury without being hard.

And in McLaren Vale, it makes a hell of a lot of sense.

Oliver's Taranga Planted Australia's First Mencia

This is where the story gets really good.

Oliver's Taranga isn't simply another Australian winery jumping onto an emerging variety.

Corrina Wright planted Australia's first Mencia vines in 2011.

The first red Mencia was produced in 2016, making Oliver's Taranga one of the genuine pioneers of the variety in this country. The 2024 release was described by Halliday reviewer Marcus Ellis as arguably the Australian “touchstone for mencía.”

Think about that.

Fourteen years after planting the vines, we're now looking at:

95 POINTS

from Halliday for the 2025.

The experiment worked.

95 Points – Halliday Wine Companion

The 2025 has taken another step forward with:

95 POINTS

from Halliday Wine Companion.

And that score is particularly exciting given the trajectory of this wine.

The previous 2024 release received 93 points from Halliday, with Marcus Ellis praising its deep floral perfume, blackberry and blueberry fruit, dark spice, earthy complexity, supple texture and fine tannins.

Now the 2025 has jumped to 95.

This isn't just an interesting alternative variety anymore.

This is seriously good wine.

Gold Medal – Australian Alternative Varieties Wine Show

And Halliday isn't alone.

The 2025 Oliver's Taranga Mencia won:

🥇 GOLD MEDAL

at the 2025 Australian Alternative Varieties Wine Show.

The official show results confirm the 2025 Oliver's Taranga was one of only two Mencias awarded Gold in its class.

That's pretty fitting.

The family that pioneered Mencia in Australia is now producing one of the country's benchmark examples.

The 2025 Is Absolutely Loaded with Personality

Oliver's Taranga describes the 2025 as starting with:

Dusky florals

Potpourri

Ripe berries

Sumac spice

Rhubarb

Quince

Blood plum.

And then the palate takes over.

Cherry + Plum Compote

with blackberry, wine gums and sarsaparilla adding another layer of fruit and savoury complexity.

This doesn't sound like another generic Australian red.

And that's exactly the point.

Tasting Notes

Appearance: Brilliant purple-red. Vibrant, youthful and inviting.

Aroma: Wonderfully distinctive. Blood plum, blackberry and ripe berries meet potpourri and dusky florals, followed by rhubarb, quince and exotic sumac spice.

Palate: Plush cherry and plum compote initially give the impression of generosity, but a savoury line of acidity quickly brings everything into balance. Blackberry, dark berries, sarsaparilla and spice add layers of complexity.

Texture: This is where things get particularly interesting. There's some genuine tannin — gritty and savoury through the middle — before becoming more velvety toward the finish.

Finish: Fresh, floral and savoury, with dark fruit and spice lingering beautifully.

Warm and plush, but still fresh.

That's the balancing act.

McLaren Vale – But Not as You Know It

When most people hear McLaren Vale red, they immediately think:

Shiraz.

Grenache.

Cabernet Sauvignon.

And increasingly:

Tempranillo.

But Mencia?

That's where things get interesting.

Oliver's Taranga has spent years experimenting with varieties suited to the region's climate and soils, with more than 50 individual vineyard blocks across its roughly 300-acre property encompassing different varieties, clones, soil types and vine ages.

The Small Batch range exists precisely to showcase blocks and varieties that perform particularly well in a given vintage.

And Mencia has become one of the stars.

The Oliver Family – Six Generations in McLaren Vale

There's serious history behind all this experimentation.

Oliver's Taranga has been connected to McLaren Vale for generations, while the current winemaker is:

Corrina Wright – Sixth Generation.

That's what I love about the story.

This isn't a new-wave producer without roots.

It's an old McLaren Vale family willing to ask:

What else can we grow here?

And instead of simply planting another block of Shiraz, they planted an obscure northwestern Spanish grape.

That's exciting.

2025 – Small Berries, Huge Flavour

The 2025 vintage was one of the earliest Oliver's Taranga has experienced.

Picking started on:

24 January

and by:

13 March

the entire 110-hectare vineyard had been harvested.

The season was extremely dry.

That resulted in:

Smaller berries

but crucially:

Excellent concentration of flavour.

Consistently warm days also allowed for even ripening across the vineyard.

And apparently the local rainbow lorikeets knew something.

Corrina Wright says they took a particular liking to the early-ripening:

Tempranillo and Mencia.

Smart birds.

100% Mencia

No blending it away.

No Shiraz added to beef it up.

The wine is:

100% Mencia

from:

100% McLaren Vale.

That's important because we're getting a proper expression of the grape rather than Mencia being used simply as seasoning in a blend.

And at:

14% alcohol

there's plenty of fruit and generosity, but the savoury acidity and tannins keep the wine beautifully alive.

Small Batch – And Only 8,667 Bottles

Here's another little detail I like.

Production of the 2025 was only:

8,667 bottles.

That's tiny.

And it reinforces the point of Oliver's Taranga's Small Batch range.

These aren't huge-volume commercial wines.

They're wines made because a particular:

Variety

Block

Vintage

has shown something worth bottling.

The Value Is Ridiculous

Oliver's Taranga currently sells the 2025 Mencia direct for:

$37.

Your RRP:

$37.

And for that you're getting:

100% Mencia

100% McLaren Vale

Australia's pioneering Mencia vineyard

Sixth-generation winemaker Corrina Wright

Small Batch production

Only 8,667 bottles

95 Points – Halliday Wine Companion

Gold Medal – Australian Alternative Varieties Wine Show

For thirty-seven dollars.

That's exactly the sort of wine I want people to take a punt on.

Because the risk is tiny.

And the reward is huge.

If You Like These Wines, Try Mencia

If your cellar is full of nothing but big Shiraz, this may not be the obvious next step.

But if you love wines like:

Pinot Noir

Gamay

Grenache

Frappato

Mencía from Bierzo

or simply fragrant, savoury, medium-weight reds:

Get into this.

It has enough fruit to be immediately appealing, but enough florals, acidity, spice and tannin to make it genuinely interesting.

And that's what makes the bottle disappear.

Food Pairings

Oliver's Taranga suggests paella, and it's difficult to think of anything more appropriate.

I'd also go with:

• Chorizo
• Chargrilled lamb
• Pork belly
• Jamón
• Spanish tapas
• Mushroom paella
• Grilled chicken
• Wood-fired pizza
• Roast pork
• Manchego

And I'd happily give it a slight chill in warmer weather.

Not cold — just cool enough to make those florals and dark fruits jump out of the glass.

Why We Love It

This is exactly what excites me about alternative varieties in Australia.

We're not trying to make another version of Shiraz.

We're finding varieties that genuinely belong here.

And Mencia increasingly looks like one of them.

You're getting:

Rare Spanish variety

One of Australia's pioneering Mencia plantings

100% Mencia

McLaren Vale

Dusky florals & potpourri

Cherry

Blackberry

Blood plum

Sumac spice

Rhubarb & savoury complexity

Velvety tannins

95 Points – Halliday Wine Companion

Gold Medal – Australian Alternative Varieties Wine Show

And the RRP?

$37.

This is the sort of wine you buy because you're curious — and then come back for because it's delicious.

The 2025 Oliver's Taranga Mencia has all the fruit generosity you'd expect from McLaren Vale, but there's something completely different happening around it:

Florals. Spice. Savouriness. Freshness. Grip.

It's warm and plush without becoming heavy.

Interesting without becoming weird.

And ridiculously easy to drink.

95 Halliday. Gold Medal. Australia's pioneering Mencia vineyard. $37.

👉 If you've never tasted Mencia, start here. And if you already love Mencia, you need to see what Corrina Wright is doing with it in McLaren Vale. This is one of Australia's most exciting alternative reds.