WA’s winemakers aim to produce the country’s finest wine

Western Australia’s winemakers share a simple aim; to produce the country’s finest wine

Swinney Vineyard, recenlty crowned ‘Best Vineyard in Australia’

Western Australia persuades you Mother Nature plays favourites. That somewhere so generously endowed with natural treasures can also produce some of the best wine on the planet seems almost greedy.

Thankfully, the people that populate the wine regions of WA are very happy to share their good fortune.

The state’s nine Geographical Indications (the official term for Australia’s officially designated wine regions) each have distinctive flavours and defining characteristics that go well beyond the bottle. Like all sites where great wines are born, the best vineyards of Western Australia imprint themselves on the wines that flow from them, etching unmistakeable signatures that draw the drinker from wherever they might be in the world straight back to the ancient soils of Australia’s charmed southwest corner.

While spread over a vast area, Western Australia’s actual vinous output is small. The whole state produces little more than 2 per cent of Australia’s wine, but the true picture emerges when you learn that from within that small fraction comes 20 per cent of the country’s wine meeting the threshold that sees it classed as ‘Premium.’

Ironically, the largest state in the nation is the one best proving the maxim of quality over quantity.

The story of Western Australian wine is populated by a diverse cast – the thirsty medicos of Margaret River, the industrious immigrants in the Swan, the diversifying graziers of Frankland River – but all share one common goal.

To produce wines that speak powerfully and evocatively of this especially blessed part of the planet.

There are some who like to claim these are the most remote vineyards in the winemaking world, but remoteness is relative and perspective is often claimed by those have it least. Anyone who has spent time in the wine regions of Western Australia knows they are smack bang in the middle of somewhere truly special.

Here’s an entirely subjective guide to the best of the West.

Margaret River

It’s 50 years since a cardiologist from Perth planted his first vines in Margaret River dirt. Tom Cullity had been inspired to establish the vineyard he called Vasse Felix by a report from agronomist Dr John Gladstones that suggested the climate and soils of Margaret River, with their parallels to conditions in the revered Bordeaux region of France, might well be conducive to vineyards.

Dr Tom Cullity, left, and Jack Mann in the early days of Vasse Felix

All that was needed was the quixotic visionaries to plant them. Cullity was closely followed by a couple more medical men. Dr Bill Pannell established Moss Wood in 1969 and Dr Kevin Cullen and his wife Diana drove a station wagon packed with six kids from nearby Busselton every weekend in 1971 to plant their own eponymous vineyard with self-bred labour.

Around the same time David Hohnen, just returned from viticulture and winemaking studies in California, was establishing Cape Mentelle, and merchant banker Denis Horgan, having fielded enquiries from Californian wine legend Robert Mondavi seeking to buy his land holdings in the region, decided to keep the dirt for himself and set up Leeuwin Estate.

The remarkable thing about Margaret River is how rapidly the place hits its winemaking straps. In that first decade those pioneers made some striking wines garnering national and international attention, and when Hohnen won Australia’s most famous wine-show trophy – The Jimmy Watson – back to back in 1983-84, Margaret River’s ascension from humble farming community to world-class wine region was complete.

This rapid rise speaks strongly of the unique coalition of natural gifts that make Margaret River so suited to viticulture. To paraphrase every real-estate agent who ever drew breath, it’s all about location, location, location.

The 120-km stretch from Cape Naturaliste to Cape Leeuwin is the most maritime-influenced winemaking country on our continent, the cooling breezes coming off two great oceans – the Indian and the Southern – creating what Vasse Felix winemaker Virginia Wilcock likes to call “Mother Nature’s airconditioner”.

This oceanic influence is the most obvious comparison with estuarine Bordeaux, so it’s no surprise that region’s signature variety – cabernet sauvignon – is one that has thrived in Margaret River.

The remarkable thing about Margaret River is how rapidly it hit its winemaking straps

Virtually every serious producer in the region produces cabernet sauvignon – often seasoned with one or more of the other Bordelais varieties – merlot, malbec, cabernet franc or petit verdot – and the uniformly high quality across the board is testament to the harmonious union of region and variety.

The best examples are medium-bodied and finely structured, with a dark core of dark berry fruit and a subtle savoury note reminiscent of bay leaves and black olives.

Those who want to argue the region produces Australia’s best cabernets will get a pretty fair hearing from me.

If the success of cabernet sauvignon is testament to smart reading of the data, the establishment of chardonnay as the region’s white-wine star is more about instinct and the distinctly Australian winemaking trait of giving something a go and hoping it works.

Chardonnay’s Burgundian origins, a more continental climate, didn’t necessarily suggest it would thrive in maritime Margaret River, but thrive it has, and the region’s distinctive style that delivers purity and precision with a powerful core of fruit has become celebrated around the world.

Winemaker Vanya Cullen in her vineyard, at Wilyabrup, Margaret River. Picture: Colin Murty The Australian

The best Margaret River producers are those who consistently excel with both and in that grouping I put Deep Woods, Cullen, Xanadu, Vasse Felix, Leeuwin Estate, Suckfizzle, Flametree, Cherubino, Cape Mentelle, Lenton Brae, Voyager Estate, Domaine Naturaliste, Woodlands and Juniper Estate.

The region’s distinctively grassy and zesty blends of sauvignon blanc and semillon rightly have their fans, Cliff Royle at Flametree does great things with shiraz, and I’ve long had a soft spot for the classic riesling of Leeuwin Estate.

The wilder side of winemaking is thrillingly displayed in the exciting wines of Nic Peterkin at L.A.S Vino, Jo Perry at Dormilona and Sarah Morris and Iwo Jakimowicz at Si Vintners.

And for all those who believe a day’s wine tasting is best closed by a beer or seven, the Settlers Tavern is one of Australia’s best pubs.

Great Southern

More than just two-thirds of an old Icehouse hit, Great Southern is actually the large banner under which five distinctive sub-regions sit. It is, in fact, Australia’s largest wine region by area, stretching 200km east to west and 100km north to south.

Just as Margaret River owes a debt to the scientific work of Dr John Gladstones, the potential of Great Southern as a wine-growing district was championed by Professor Harold Olmo, a Californian viticulturist on a Fulbright scholarship who delivered a report to the WA government in 1955 identifying the region as one of high potential for the production of good quality table wines.

The largest state in the nation best proves the maxim of quality over quantity

The five sub-regions are coastal Albany and Denmark, and the inland Frankland River, Mt Barker and Porongurup, each with their own strengths.

The coastal regions produce nervy aromatic whites and peppery shiraz, Mt Barker elegantly framed and deftly proportioned reds, and the weathered granite soils of Porongurup give rise to some of the most exciting rieslings on earth, especially those shaped by the skilled hands of Rob Diletti at Castle Rock.

Riesling is also a strength of Frankland River, a strong contender for title of best region in Australia if it were ever judged on a per capita basis.

Recently crowned “Best Vineyard in Australia”, the Swinney Vineyard has rewritten the rule book of what is possible in Frankland River in varietal terms, producing stunning wines based on grenache and mourvedre as well as the more common riesling, cabernet sauvignon and shiraz.

Graziers and grape growers, the Smith family of Frankland Estate are regional pioneers currently in a purple patch, producing the best wines they ever have, taking what was already a great offering to a whole other level.

Larry Cherubino in his vineyards at Larry Cherubino Wines, Margaret River

Larry Cherubino, a man with a decorated winemaking record few could match, knows the area better than most and his belief in the region can be seen in his eponymous wine range that features wines from right across WA, but skews heavily to Frankland River.

Throw in the stalwart Alkoomi and the consistent quality of Ferngrove and you have a sub–region punching well above its weight.

Swan Valley

The Swan Valley is the second-oldest wine region in the country, established shortly after the Hunter Valley and seven years before a vine ever took root in South Australian soil.

Its origins are English: Thomas Waters built the first cellar at Olive Farm in 1830 and Dr John Ferguson purchased a land grant from three Indian Army officers, the most senior of them, Colonel Richmond Houghton, lending his name to the property that would become the Swan Valley’s most famous.

But its lifeblood came from the Balkans and several waves of immigration in the first half of the 20th century saw a thriving wine-growing community develop in the sun–drenched Swan Valley.

The Kosovich family come from that tradition and third-generation winemaker Arch Kosovich is doing brilliant things with the regional trump card, chenin blanc, and harnesses the area’s abundant sun and warmth to produce a collection of fortified wines that are comfortably among the country’s best.

The vines at Leeuwin Winery, in the Margaret River

Another with a fondness for chenin blanc, and deep roots in Swan Valley dirt is Robert Mann. Mann is the sixth generation of a famed winemaking family, his grandfather Jack Mann widely regarded as the most important winemaker WA has produced.

After joining his father George at Houghton as a 16-year-old, Jack worked 51 vintages with the company, and is celebrated as the man responsible for developing Houghton’s White Burgundy, a hugely important part of Australian winemaking history and surely the most significant chenin blanc-based wine ever made here.

With wife Genevieve, Mann produces several compelling wines under the Corymbia label, wines imbued with a long-held understanding of, and a deep-seated love for, the vineyards of the Swan Valley.

The Manns are the personification of the Swan Valley’s storied history and bright future.

Other regions to watch

The story of Western Australia’s wine regions doesn’t end there.

Geographe stretches from Harvey in the north to Busselton in the south and offers genuine viticultural diversity, from the maritime-shaped sites between Busselton and Bunbury, of which Capel Vale is right the best known, to more sheltered sites around Donnybrook and in the Fergusson Valley, where Willow Bridge have long produced a range of impressively detailed wines.

Pemberton is the crucible of hope for those vignerons chasing the pinot noir grail in the West, its cool climate offering the most hope of success with the notoriously fickle variety, as well as imbuing aromatic white varieties like sauvignon blanc with a thrilling nervous tension. The Pannells at Picardy have produced some brilliant wines from here over the years.

A slight elevation in the vineyards at Manjimup helps produce fine-boned chardonnay, verdelho and some of the best merlot in the state.

The Perth Hills is a place of barely tapped potential, its diverse topography bound to reveal exciting viticultural opportunities to those who seek them. The wines from Millbrook should provide plenty of inspiration for those hoping to strike similar gold in these hills.

But it’s one thing to read about these places. It’s another entirely to experience these regions in an immersive sense.

The wine regions of Western Australia are best experienced in situ, with vineyard dirt on your boots and a bottle at hand.