Eleven Sons 'El Pueblo más Feo' Rufete 2021

Crushed red fruit
Silken sunset
Beguiling

A rare gamay-esque variety grown on slate at 670 meters outside the
village of Garcibuey, local referred to as the ugliest village in the
range. Approximately 40 year-old Bush vines yield about 500-600
bottles a year.

Mitchell Sokolin grew up around wine – he comes from a Russian immigrant family in New York City that has made fine wine retail its trade – so it is perhaps no surprise that he fell into a wine career after completing studies in history and economics at Colgate University. After sommelier roles in some of San Francisco’s most vaunted fine-dining restaurants (including Michelin-starred eateries Michael Mina and Acquerello), he set out to become an international “vagabond winemaker,” eschewing formal training and instead racking up hands-on experience via vintages in Oregon, Spain, Italy, Australia, New Zealand and Georgia.

While working in Spain’s Sierra de Francia, a disagreement with his then-employer about how best to make wine from the rufete variety led him to launch his own micro-label, M. Sokolin, which eventually morphed over ten or so years into Eleven Sons – a name pinched, with Sokolin’s characteristic erudition, from a Franz Kafka short story. “It was for the most part fuelled by a perhaps egoistical conviction that it should be done differently or that I could do it better,” Sokolin says of his early forays into solo winemaking. “I was wrong often, but I think my understanding and calculations have improved such that I now I hit more than I miss. Or so I hope.” Currently based in Winchelsea, on Victoria’s Surf Coast, Sokolin draws most of the fruit for Eleven Sons from South Australia’s Limestone Coast, working with growers in Mount Gambier, Padthaway, Robe, and Mount Benson.