I worked for Wine Australia for several years and gave quite a few presentations on the history of Australian wine. At this year’s TEXSOM conference I gave the usual story a bit of a twist.
The usual narrative starts with the First Fleet arriving at Botany Bay in 1788 when vines gathered on the journey from England were planted in the Sydney Botanic Garden. In the 1830s, additional vines arrived courtesy of James Busby, a Scottish viticulturalist who collected hundreds of cuttings during his travels in Spain and France. Vines from this “Busby Collection” would then spread across the country.
At this point, the focus typically moves to South Australia, specifically Barossa, and the vines that were planted in the mid-1800s by Silesian immigrants. These old vines are still producing grapes and wine today. Shiraz in the Henschke’s Hill of Grace vineyard. Marco Cirillo’s head trained Grenache planted in soils as sandy as a beach. Gnarled Mourvèdre vines in Hewitson's Old Garden vineyard. Gazing across these vineyards is gazing at a direct line from the past to the present.
The story continues as vines fan out across the country. Production morphs from fortified wines into dry table wines after World War II as tastes changed in the export markets (hello, UK) and a wave of Italian and Greek immigrants imported their own food and wine culture. The story remains centered on the southeast until the timeline hits the 1970s when Margret River in Western Australia enters the scene. Three hours south of Perth, with a climate similar to Bordeaux but sunnier, the young region quickly earned a global reputation for high quality reds and whites. “2% of total Aussie grapes but 20% of premium Aussie wine” is an oft quoted statistic. I can’t vouch for its specific accuracy, but it’s a good general indicator of Margaret River’s quality level.
The issue with this narrative arc is that it takes far too long to get to Western Australia and never once mentions Swan Valley.
Just north of Perth and slightly further inland, Swan Valley is, to use the phase most often applied to the Barossa, a treasure trove of old vines. In 1829, the UK botanist Thomas Waters planted vines at Olive Farm and began selling wine in 1832. The winery is still operating – run by the fourth generation of the Yurisich family, who migrated from Yugoslavia and purchased the farm in 1933. Another winery, Houghton’s, dates back to 1836. Following a twisty-turny path of purchases and sales, the original plot of old vines is now part of Nikola Estate, owned by the fourth generation of the Yukich family, who migrated from Croatia.
Beyond these historic wineries, the Swan Valley also hosts a number of small growers, each with their own old vine treasure trove. And there’s a growing crop of young winemakers working with them. There are analogies to be made with South Africa’s Swartland region. That too is a region at the edge of the wine map that was rarely mentioned until the combination of old vines, young winemakers, and new wines started to become too delicious to ignore.
The wine I showed at TEXSOM to tell this story in liquid form was from Vino Volta. If Eben Sadie is the name to know in the Swartland, in Swan Valley, the names are Garth Cliff and Kristen McGann. They’re sourcing fruit from local growers – which is the best way to ensure these old vines survive – and helping inch the farming towards organics. While Margaret River, to the south, is focused on big-name, internationally glamorous varieties such as Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon, Swan Valley’s relative obscurity offers a sort of vine protection program. As a result, the region’s original great-for-fortified varieties (Grenache, Chenin, Muscat, Verdelho) were never pulled up. Not surprisingly, they’re well-adapted to the dry, hot climate and require no adjustments in the winery to make fresh, compelling wines. They also lend themselves to cool-kid styles involving a bit of skin contact for the whites and glou glou juiciness for the reds. Vino Volta has several Chenin bottlings, ranging from crisp and zippy, to structured and savory, to bubbly. They also bottle a throw-back style fortified Verdelho, a skin contact Gewurztraminer/Muscat blend, and a several different Grenache expressions.
The Vino Volta bottling I showcased at TEXSOM was their Post Modern Seriousism Grenache 2022. It was juicy and floral and a little spicy due to a pinch of whole bunches in the fermentation. Aussies like to say that Grenache is warm climate Pinot Noir, meaning it can offer some of the same perfume and silkiness of that heartbreak grape. They also like to say that what Pinot Noir promises, Grenache delivers. And this wine proved that point.
But by now, the joys of perfumed, ethereal Aussie Grenache are well-known to in-the-know wine folks. (Or at least to anyone who has heard me talk about Aussie Grenache anytime in the last five years.) Yet the wine was still a revelation. Its Swan Valley origins proved the larger point that I wanted to make during my TEXSOM tasting – that sometimes it’s worth looking at history from another angle – or in this case, from another coast.
