A Letter from a Pair of Reluctant Winemakers

Hi, Sue Fairlie-Cuninghame here. My husband David and I own and run the Mongrel Vineyard. Here’s the story of how our winery came to be…

Back in 1998 I was dressed in chic black and working as Executive Editor: Food & Wine at the late, lamented Vogue Entertaining magazine. One day I my husband David decided to plant a small vineyard on our cattle farm in Mudgee.

David and I have a lifelong passion for wine. We were founding members of Australian wine visionary Len Evans’s Rothbury Estate. David has travelled widely with wine judge and scribe, Lester Jesberg. And I have been privileged to visit many vineyards and many diverse wine regions here and overseas.

We love wine, drink our share, and continue on an ever widening learning curve.

Never in those halcyon Vogue years did I imagine what it would be like to get down and dirty, on my hands and knees, in the mud, and plant 13,000 Shiraz rootlings in the October heat. And then to battle storm and tempest, drought, disease, pests, the vagaries of the seasons, and, latterly, the global glut of wine grapes.

We never intended to make wine. Our goal was to grow and sell the best quality grapes we could produce, which we did successfully for a time. In 1993, Bob Robert’s Huntington vineyard was trashed by hail. Having lost his Shiraz he chose to buy ours. He made a nifty little wine, which won a bronze medal and caused us to think more seriously about winemaking.

2010 will be our thirteenth vintage and our fifth year making our own wine. We’re committed to producing quality, food-friendly wines at an affordable price. We take a fresh approach to Shiraz, working closely with our winemakers to create an interesting complexity of flavours and blends.

We hope you enjoy our wine and invite you to visit our tasting room when you’re in Mudgee

Sue & David Fairlie-Cuninghame