The visit that accidentally spawned this impressive new winery
These wines are an incredibly impressive debut and represent a serious statement of intent.
Two smart, artistic women go in search of a property they can turn into a gallery and end up with a vineyard in the process. Moral of the story? Don’t go shopping with husbands in tow.
Kirsty Kingsley and Renee de Saxe went to inspect an old 32ha farm in the Barossa Valley with the intention of renovating the property as a showcase for their art. While they cast eyes over bricks and mortar, their viticulturist husbands went to play in the dirt.
Renee’s husband Luke Edwards grew up in the Clare Valley and worked in vineyards in the Adelaide Hills and Tasmania. Kirsty’s husband Nick Radford, a sixth-generation Barossan, is so entrenched in the place that medical records list his blood type as “shiraz”.
They’d noticed the vines – about 12ha worth – on the drive in, but they kind of expected to. It would be more notable to find a 100-year-old Barossa farmhouse that didn’t have them. As their wives measured up wall space and visualised exhibitions to come, the boys walked down vine rows. Fast-forward a couple of years and Wonderground has been established as a beautiful contemporary art space and a wine label drawn from the vineyards that surround it, several others nearby and an Adelaide Hills vineyard owned by de Saxe and Edwards.
In May, the couples launched the Mirus label, a suite of wines that dig into the various vineyard blocks on the property, born from brains that segment soil types in their sleep and obsess about the complex geology beneath.
These wines are an incredibly impressive debut and represent a serious statement of intent. It’s Barossa bodywork built on a sleeker chassis, wines that deliver depth and detail without density. They show profound understanding of the science behind growing great grapes and a feel for the art of elevating them to something special. This is a property to watch.
WONDERGROUND SHIRAZ 2023, $35
There’s a gully sweeping through the vineyard that funnels cool air from the top of a ridge down into the valley below. It washes over the vines sitting in deep, sandy loam that produce this wine. And it shows. Bright raspberry freshness, slippery and svelte, depth without density. Shiraz rejuvenated and reshaped.
14.4% alc; 93 points
MIRUS BLOCK 16 GRENACHE 2022, $65
From old vines planted in 1936 by original owners, the Neldner family. Dry cherry and lap cheong, raspberry licorice and rose hips. It’s seductively bright and supple with a faintly smoky meatiness anchoring all that upfront charm, and finishes with a fine weave of softly sappy tannin. A wine of surgically precise detail. 14.4% alc; 94 points
BLOCK 21 SHIRAZ 2022, $65
Ancient Barossa soils, modern Barossa mindset. A wine of balance and poise, delivering complexity and power with admirable restraint. Black berries, dark plums. Chocolate milk with a shot of espresso. Some dark earth and soot. Plush and muscular, but never cumbersome. Beautifully textured, like a bolt of velvet unfurling down stairs. 14.4% alc; 93 points