Dr. John Middleton founded Mount Mary in 1971 and was one of the leaders in reviving the Yarra Valley as a premium grape growing area. Today, the Mount Mary “Quintet” is considered one of Australia’s seven most collectable wines by Langton’s, Australia’s leading auction house.

The Quintet, a meritage-style blend of the main five Bordeaux varieties, is Mount Mary’s most famous wine, however they also make chardonnay, pinot noir, and a blended white. Grown in the very cool climate of the Yarra Valley, this is not a big, brooding 'full-on' Aussie red. Rather, the wine takes its inspiration from Bordeaux, offering up elegant and balanced flavors with lingering palate presence. As Aussie writer Huon Hooke notes, "Middleton makes wines for drinking, not for wine shows." And these are wines that reward cellaring.

Many of our Aussie wine lovers who crave Barossa reds have pulled old Mt. Mary cabs from their cellars and have been so impressed they were compelled to reduce our stock of older vintages. The 2000 vintage was selected by wine critic Jeremy Oliver as his wine of the year in which he declared it to be “benchmark cool climate Australian cabernet.” That wine is sold out of course, but the 56 cases of ‘01 allocated to the States has just hit the beach. When we first sold Mount Mary, the '93 vintage, no one had heard of this special wine. Times have changed and today Mount Mary is quietly making its unique style known in America. Chuck Hayward's The Down Under Digest, June 2004.

A dusty, but deeply concentrated perfume of crushed violets and cassis is backed by sweet vanilla and chocolate oak, with a whiff of capsicum. Rich, smooth and seamless, almost opulent for a cabernet, it’s wonderfully long, harmonious and stylish, constructed around the finest of firm tannins. For the cellar. 19.2, drink 2013-2021. --Jeremy Oliver, 09.30.2003.