A bottle of wine can tell a thousand stories and for Valerie Miranda from South Australia’s Barossa Valley, it’s a tale of faith and family. Source: The Southern Cross.
Ms Miranda and her husband Lou own Lou Miranda Estate, a winery, cellar door and restaurant in the Barossa Valley town of Rowland Flat.
The winery has a long history of producing fortified wine. The first fortified produced on the site was in 1919 and the Mirandas feel privileged to continue that tradition.
Another tradition Ms Miranda is devoted to is supplying sacramental wine to Our Lady of the Rosary Church and St Laurence’s Church at her beloved North Adelaide/Prospect parish.
“We’ve provided it for around 10 years now,” Ms Miranda said.
“We don’t make special labels for it but the priests are just happy to have it. It’s nice to contribute something to your faith and to your community. When they look to you for help, I think that’s really special.”
Ms Miranda regularly reads at Mass and keeps Our Lady of the Rosary and St Laurence’s churches looking beautiful.
These days, the couple enjoys retirement and their daughters Victoria, Lisa and Angela (Lou Miranda Estate’s winemaker) run the wine business. They have plenty of family history from which to draw inspiration.
The siblings’ grandfather, Francesco Miranda, arrived in Australia from Southern Italy in 1938. Francesco wanted to give his family a better life and did so through tenacity, foresight, and hard work.
He founded the winery in 1939 and used to say he could only make great wine with great fruit.
Mrs Miranda is reminded of Italy every time she attends the February 8 Feast Day of St Josephine Bakhita, who became a Canossian Sister after being taken into slavery in Sudan.
“I just love St Bakhita because she lived up the road from where our family comes from in Italy,” she said.
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A heart of liquid gold (By Katie Spain, The Southern Cross)
