2025 MMAD Vineyard Blewitt Springs Chenin Blanc, McLaren Vale

The evolution of this wine never ceases to interest and amaze me, there is incremental texture and chiselled edges to the wine wrapped in this slinky, saline and mineral driven package. Pomelo, buddhas hand, citrus and yellow plum. Pumice stone and white pepper.  Some fennel seeds too. There is a coating to this wine, not quite oily but slick in nature, it sticks to the sides of your palate before rumbling down like a steam train of power with innate acidity and drive. Another exceptional release and a benchmark of what Chenin Banc can do in this country. This is a wine that accompanies so many morsels, from fish with fins to straticella or fried Balmain bug tails.

97 points Shanteh Wale for Wine Pilot, July 2026

The latest vintage of the MMAD Chenin Blanc is its youth, greeting you like a tightly coiled spring with lifted floral aromatics before fanning out with a colourful display of citrus fruit and spice. The wine feels energetic on the palate, with a light, pleasantly waxy texture coating the mouth, and gradual release of rich fruit flavours. Vibrant today, it’s the kind of wine that will reward those smart enough to stash a few bottles away for the years to follow.

Chenin Blanc is a chameleon at the table, and what you dish up would depend on bottle age. If opening young, try with kingfish ceviche with a salsa of finger lime, green apple and coriander, or a goat’s curd, pea and thyme tartlet.

More about this wine

The MMAD Vineyard Blewitt Springs Chenin Blanc is made from some of the oldest Chenin vines in McLaren Vale, dating back to 1964.

The 2025 McLaren Vale season was warm and dry, but with cool nights. Most producers picked early to combine good flavour ripeness with refreshing acidity.

The grapes for this wine were hand-harvested, and the combination of crushed and whole bunch pressed fruit was fermented in a mixture of both concrete and large format seasoned oak before maturing on lees in old French puncheons.

About MMAD Vineyards

MMAD Vineyard is a collaboration between wine identities Michael Hill Smith MW, Martin Shaw, Adam Wadewitz and David LeMire MW.

At the heart of it is a old vine vineyard in Blewitt Springs. This is an elevated part of the McLaren Vale defined by its fine and well-draining Maslin sand soils, and in the MMAD vineyard, the subsoils consisting of a layer of ironstone pebbles.

The Grenache vines in the vineyard were planted in 1939, and stand next to Shiraz and Chenin Blanc vines, the oldest of which were planted in 1941 and 1964 respectively. The tiny parcel of Cabernet Sauvignon is very much a support act here.