2021 Mount Majura Mondeuse

WINEMAKER: Frank van de Loo
REGION: Canberra District, NSW
VARIETAL: Mondeuse
VITICULTURE: Sustainable

With the climate becoming warmer and drier, Mondeuse for us is filling the space left by Pinot Noir. The 2019 vintage is our fifth release, and the area has been increased significantly to 0.602Ha We prefer to pronounce it as the Savoyards do, rhyming with furs. Mondeuse (noire) is the progeny of mondeuse blanche and the obscure variety tressot noir, just as shiraz is the progeny of mondeuse blanche and the obscure dureza, so that mondeuse and shiraz are half-siblings.

Mount Majura Vineyard lies near the top of the Majura Valley, just outside the city of Canberra. The valley floor, too frosty in Spring for vines, was a camping area and transit corridor for the original Ngunnawal people. To a vigneron, an east-facing slope with limestone speaks softly but urgently of a need to plant vines. So it was that the late Dr Edgar Riek, a pioneer of viticulture in the Canberra District, came to plant a vineyard together with the then owner of our site, Mrs Dinny Killen.