From a napkin business plan to an address in McLaren Vale
The story of Mitolo does not begin in 1999, but decades earlier, in the Abruzzo region. Frank Mitolo is the fourth descendant of a farming and winemaking family that emigrated to Australia in the 1950s – with the work ethic and the attitude to life of their home region in their luggage. Frank's father Bruno had inherited his passion for wine from his father Francesco, and so Frank grew up with vines, soil, and the motto of the Abruzzo: forte e gentile – strong and gentle.
Initially, Frank worked in the family business, a potato farm, and made wine on a small scale for friends and relatives. In 1999, he met winemaker Ben Glaetzer – after a five-hour conversation, the plan was set, noted on the back of a napkin: individuality, integrity, quality, purity, elegance, and power. In 2000, the first Mitolo wine was released, the G.A.M. Shiraz, named after Frank's children Gemma, Alexander, and Marco. Ben Glaetzer officially became a partner in 2001. Since 2021, Luke Mallaby has been responsible for the cellar – a winemaker with two decades of experience in the Barossa Valley, Yarra Valley, Rheinhessen, and Santa Barbara.
Fruit from the south: terroir, the Lopresti family, and cellar precision
The heart of Mitolo's work is the close relationship with the Lopresti family, also Italian immigrants, who farm their vineyards in the southern districts of Sellicks Hill, Aldinga, and the Whites Valley sub-region. Mitolo sources fruit almost exclusively from this part of the McLaren Vale. The soils are heavy clay and Terra Rossa, the climate Mediterranean: warm days, afternoon sea breezes from the Gulf St. Vincent, cool katabatic winds from the ranges. This combination results in grapes with depth and intensity that still retain freshness and acid structure.
In the cellar, the principle is to continue the work in the vineyard, not to over-process. Selective work with barriques from different coopers, careful fruit selection, manual labor – with the goal of depicting the individual nuances of each vineyard and each grape variety.
Shiraz, Cabernet, and the return to Italian grape varieties
Mitolo started with the great classics of the McLaren Vale: Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon. The Jester Shiraz stands for accessible depth – juicy dark fruit, supple tannins, the characteristic style of the southern McLaren Vale. In addition, over the years, Mitolo developed a range of Italian grape varieties: Sangiovese, Montepulciano, Nero d'Avola, Fiano, and Pecorino – a direct homage to the Abruzzo. Forte e gentile remains the benchmark: wines with power and structure that nevertheless show elegance and drinkability, without heaviness for the sake of heaviness.
