MMAD for it: new wines from Tolpuddle and Shaw + Smith team

You’re not going mad. MMAD is an acronym of the first names of the partners behind this McLaren Vale project, started in 2021. And they could not be more reassuring.

Michael Hill Smith MW, Martin Shaw, Adam Wadewitz and David LeMire MW are also behind sister-labels Shaw + Smith, up the road in South Australia’s Adelaide Hills, and Tolpuddle Vineyard down in Tasmania.

Scroll down for tasting notes and scores of the three inaugural releases from MMAD Vineyard

And following form, MMAD is another single-vineyard project – but it represents a change of direction, too. It is based in Blewitt Springs in McLaren Vale, a warmer region compared to the Adelaide Hills and Tasmania. It is also planted to old vines which, it is thought, were originally for fortified wines.

Acquired in 2021 with the help of Ray Guerin, an award-winning cool-climate viticulturist, the 14ha MMAD vineyard sits in a propitious amphitheatre at 150m to 220m in the higher part of Blewitt Springs. This is in the hillier north of McLaren Vale, exposed to fresh south-westerlies from the Gulf of St Vincent.

Three hectares of bush-vine Grenache, planted in 1939 by Conge Cassetta Snr on deep sand over ironstone and clay, form a relatively flat section on the ridge. Several blocks of Shiraz – some facing east, some west – total about 5ha. The oldest date from 1941. The west-facing Chenin Blanc closer to the top is, like the Shiraz, on deep sand with ironstone nearer the surface. It, too, was first planted by Cassetta and his son in 1964.

MMAD world

While the fine Maslin sandy soils account for Blewitt Springs’ alluring signature fresh aromatics, MMAD vineyard’s ironstone layer sealed the deal for the purchase. The partners believe it brings structure and complexity; it certainly adds a mineral, cut-finger tang to the reds.

They’d first noticed this when buying Grenache in 2015 for The Other Wine Co, another venture. Adam Wadewitz ‘pretty quickly realised there were some terrific sites’, recalls David LeMire MW. A few years later and the partners’ search was on to buy a vineyard.

While Grenache was the siren call, it wasn’t the only attraction. ‘We had been interested in Chenin Blanc for some time,’ said LeMire. ‘ So it definitely made the vineyard more attractive.

‘Chenin has been undervalued by growers, winemakers and consumers, but there have been some terrific wines. Geoff Weaver [chief white winemaker at Hardy’s for 11 of his 16 years] apparently made an excellent wine in 1982 that won a number of trophies.’

Describing the heritage site as ‘new territory for us’, LeMire has been impressed by the ‘effortless concentration that the old vines give’.

Traditionally in McLaren Vale, old-vine concentration borne of low yields together with a warm, dry climate has produced some of Australia’s most heady, opulent reds. But in combining fruit intensity with the freshness and vivacity of Blewitt Springs, MMAD Vineyard joins a growing number of other producers in striking a distinctly contemporary note for McLaren Vale Shiraz and Grenache.

The maiden vintage

Made in the first year of ownership, the maiden releases in the MMAD range share the restraint, clarity, precision and fruit purity seen in the Tolpuddle Vineyard and Shaw + Smith wines. Helped in 2021 by the mild ripening conditions.

Reflecting on 2021, LeMire observed, ‘It was a brilliant season and we went through and picked out the absolute best sections for the MMAD Vineyard wines.’

The three wines impress. They are impeccably made if perhaps a tad careful. Would a modicum more skin contact for the Chenin Blanc (it saw two hours) or whole-bunch ferment for the Grenache (they were mostly destemmed and fermented as whole berries) enhance phenolic texture and grip?

‘We wanted to get to know the vineyard and do less rather than more,’ explained LeMire, adding that all three wines had natural ferments and matured in used 500-litre French oak puncheons.

After the first vintage, they finessed their viticultural regime: pruning for lower yields, shoot thinning for good air circulation and light exposure and working on the soil with compost, straw mulch, and cover crops to increase carbon in the soil.

‘We think we can take the wines to greater heights of quality,’ LeMire says. Judging by the partners’ exceptional work at Tolpuddle Vineyard over the past decade, I would bet on it.

MMAD Vineyard: the inaugural releases

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