Margaret River wineries

Margaret River wineries list

L.A.S. Vino 

Nic Peterkin is one of the smartest and most creative winemakers: taste his scintillating, thought-provoking wines for proof. The L.A.S. Vino collection comprises several chardonnays, cabernet, Albino pinot rosé, a Pirate blend of three Portuguese varieties, CBDB – a chenin blanc dynamic blend, which is one of the finest you’ll ever likely to drink, a grenache made from Ferguson Valley fruit, plus the Fuck Him wines (check out the website for details).

How did he get so good? In what seems a short space of time, he completed under-grad degrees in science and commerce, a Masters in Oenology, set up his fledgling label L.A.S. (luck, art and science) and two years later, in 2015, finished an MBA. That’s a lot of cerebral energy. Even coming up with the L.A.S. name is a good yarn. While working vintage at Casa Madero in Mexico in 2012, Nic was chatting to winemaker Oscar Gaona. 

“I was saying how Mexican wine was a bit rubbish and could do with more science, as Australian know-how was valued. But Oscar replied Australian wine was quite industrial and on a large scale and could do with more art. Then it started raining and we had grapes to quickly pick, so you need luck, too.”

The triangle of those words – luck, art and science became the cornerstone of everything he does. “I want to explore difference and how you can have quality and attention to detail at the same time. It’s not about being different for difference’s sake.”

Yet, a sense of fun and adventure permeates his life and wine. Every year he conducts an experiment – quelling his curiosity. He heard about the Ancient Greeks immersing grapes into the sea as salt water cleaned the waxy bloom off the skins and helped dry the grapes quickly – they were sun dried on mats to preserve and intensify flavours. For vintage ’23, Nic decided to gauge if sea water impacts a wine’s flavour and microbes in winemaking. He submerged vermentino in the Indian Ocean to test his theory. The outcome? Salinity doesn’t affect fermentation but at a certain threshold, the wines are not enjoyable because they are too salty. I can vouch for the saltiness. I tasted the wine in barrel and it was off-the-charts salty. However, the final blend turned out to be 30 per cent saline wine added to a batch of wonderful vermentino. Nic says it made the wine “more interesting, textured and flavoursome.” 

The wine, called Marea, turned out beguiling and delicious. The remainder of the salty batch is now a vermouth infused with sea rosemary, salt bush, Geraldton wax and gentian for bitterness. It’s out there, he says. And this vintage, it’s low-alcohol chenin blanc. “A bit like light beer, it hits the spot.”

Windows Estate

Head out on Caves Road towards Yallingup, the Indian Ocean a few kilometres away on the left, and on the corner of Quininup Road, hidden from view, is the beautiful property and organically certified vineyard of Windows Estate, home to Jo and Chris Davies and their small suite of wines. 

While the area under vine is just seven hectares, the 48-hecatre property is mostly retained as a conservation zone. The property belonged to Chris’ parents, so he’s worked the land carefully, and tended vines since his teens. But Jo’s influence is apparent. “I’m the hippy of the two of us. I came from a farming background and my dad never sprayed a weed in his life. Chris didn’t need much convincing to go down the organic route.” 

“Certification was essential because it’s important to have integrity for us and our customers,” says Jo. “When you start getting into organics, you learn it is one ecosystem.” 

It’s why the property is an integrated farm with orchards, beehives, animals including chicken and geese, several large vegetable plots, and a forest of native flora and fauna. As to the dry-farmed vineyard, there are three distinct soil types – laterite, granite and clay – adding to the profile of the three disparate blocks: the Home Block planted in 1996 and expanded in ’99; adding Violette’s Block, all chardonnay, in 2006; and Lucas’ Block in 2013/14 to cabernet and chardonnay. The latter two named after their children.

The focus is on the regional heroes of chenin blanc, chardonnay, cabernet sauvignon and friends, plus semillon and sauvignon blanc and always on vineyard health. Five years ago, he adopted the Poussard method of pruning, which can increase the longevity and balance of the vines as it thwarts and can prevent various trunk diseases such as Eutypa (which plagues many Australian vineyards). For Chris, it’s all about attention to detail, reading the landscape, and treading gently. He lives the truth all great wine is made in the vineyard. It’s where you’ll find him.

Dormilona

Since her early 20s, Josephine Perry has led a peripatetic life travelling across Australia, Spain, France, America and New Zealand for vintages. “But I always came back to Margaret River. It’s always been home.” 

Before setting down roots more permanently in Margs with viti partner Jim Crespin, she developed a love of all things Spanish from spending six years in Galicia and Monterrei – “it’s the people, the culture, the food, the wine” – and she still maintains strong links to the wine community. 

“(In Rias Baixis) I got to play with albariño, which is awesome, but they never did whole-bunch (fermentation), actually, they didn’t do a lot of things when I got there – there was just one way to make wine and winemakers still wore lab coats! They loved that I was so hands-on in the vineyard and winery.”

Now that’s telling. Josephine is a bloody hard worker. An irony because in Spanish, dormilona means sleepy head or lazy bones, her nickname because she’d either fall asleep before dinner (usually served at 10pm) or go to bed early to get a morning surf or swim in before heading to the winery – hours before her late-night cohorts arrived.

Back home, Josephine has now created a cool cellar door and winery in the industrial part of town. In the ‘hood, she’s near auto-repair shops, panel beaters, a junk yard or two, surfboard and boat outlets, although there’s a woodfired bakery next door. She has an eclectic mix of wines and labels, made with minimal intervention and made easier by accessing great fruit (Jim manages the Yungarra vineyard they lease, an organic site in Yallingup). 

There are several tiers – everyday wines to be enjoyed fresh and young such as Orenji, Tinto and Blanco, while Clayface, her top wines, a chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon, are made in amphora, and all about purity of flavour, site and season. There’s a Swan Valley project called Yokel – with a portion of sales donated to Friends of the Western Swamp Tortoise. The tortoise is Australia’s rarest and most critically endangered reptile.

Protecting the environment, sustainability and leaving a light footprint inform her ethos. While in Spain, Josephine learnt to stay true to the grape and the land while ensuring a playfulness comes through in the wines. It sums up Dormilona perfectly.

La Kooki 

When it comes to a side-hustle, local knowledge is key. Enter La Kooki, the lovechild of wife and husband Ely Jarvis and Glenn Goodall, both winemakers, she a consultant with an emphasis on sustainability, and he orchestrating Xanadu. 

Unlike those all-encompassing roles, La Kooki allows them to find small parcels of excellent fruit, all thanks to their extensive contacts. But creativity in the winemaking and having fun are essential ingredients. 

Each notching up more than 25 years’ experience in Margaret River means “we have access to some amazing fruit,” says Ely. “And we have flexibility to do what we want but our premise is always about the fruit, which is always the hero of our wines.”

Parcels of fruit will change although La Kooki started in 2017 with rosé, off a small batch of pinot noir from Thompson Estate called Rosé Blonde because chardonnay lees from the previous vintage is added to build texture. Today, La Kooki’s core range is rosé, chardonnay and cabernet. But they have made a cracking verdelho with fruit off old vines from Willespie estate and outside Margs, a kooky Geographe tempranillo and vermentino blend called Temptino, and a Great Southern riesling. With few restrictions, experimentation is central. 

“We played around with carbonic macerated sauvignon blanc, which was not really good but carbonic macerated verdelho on the other hand, fabulous,” she says. “If you don’t experiment, you will never know.” 

But the most compelling is Boya chardonnay. In the Noongar language of the Wadandi people, the traditional custodians of Margaret River, boya means stones. And boya are added to the chardonnay as a means of topping up and lees stirring, with Ely and Glenn rolling the barrels. The inspiration came following a discussion in 2019 with Jean de Saint-Charles, owner of Chateau du Bluizard in Beaujolais. He told them stones were used to top up barrels in the Jura region. Once Glenn heard that, he was on. 

The following year, they collected granite stones, small enough to fit through the bung hole and filled half the old barrels with them and the other half without. Ely and Glenn believed stones contributed enough difference, mainly adding texture, and hence the beautiful Boya was born.

South by South West

In 2006, Mijan Patterson and Livia Maiorana, better known as Mij and Liv, met in previous careers, a graphic designer and chemical engineer respectively. But soon, the world of wine would win their hearts. As partners in life, they set off in 2013, calling it a wine safari, with vintages across Italy, France, America, and British Columbia. They also drank widely and well. 

It meant by the end of 2015 they knew what South by South West would be: honest wines, varietally true to region and vintage, all with a sense of place (a common theme with these small producers). While they are not Marg-centric, although chardonnay is their favourite, as small-batch winemakers they source fruit from Swan Valley, Geographe and Pemberton.

That complements the organic vineyards they lease in Wallcliffe and Witchcliffe, the latter where you’ll find their cellar door. And yet, there’s a strong play with Italian words with many of their wines, aside from varieties, such as Arancia (meaning orange) a co-fermented skin-contact blend of pinots grigio and bianco, Super Margs, a blend of Willyabrup sangiovese and cabernet, and Fiori, an aromatic blend of muscat, sauvignon blanc and chenin blanc.

This stems from Liv’s Sicilian heritage, on her father’s side. The family grew grapes on the island and she has subsequently done vintages in Sicily, so yes, wine is in her blood. Importantly, the Italian sensibility of making savoury, food-friendly styles is key to the range. 

“We’re not trying to make Italian wine,” says Liv. “We make Margaret River nebbiolo but we’re not making Barolo. We’re just showing how Italian varieties grow here (and in the south-west) and how the styles can work.”

Margaret River enjoys a coterie of small producers, each worthy of more than a mention. Check out these for starters: Trait, tripe.Iscariot, Corymbia, Battles Wines, Si Vintners, LS Merchants, Mr Barval Fine Wines, Brown Hill Estate, Sam Vinciullo, Walsh & Sons, Marri Wood Park, Victory Point Wines and Amato Vino.

Ready to learn more? Expand your knowledge with Halliday Wine Academy

Through Introduction to Wine, students will learn about Australian wine and wine regions, how wine is made, how to taste and describe wine, how to approach food and wine matches, along with handy tips that address common wine questions. And in part one of our Wines of the World course, discover and explore the iconic wines, regions and laws of France, Spain, Portugal, Hungary, Germany and Austria.