Summary

What the hell…where the hell…is the Great Southern?!

That’s what most people say.

Which is why Peter got on a plane and braved fires, snakes and Vegemite to bring you this story of what is arguably Western Australia’s best kept secret.

Remote? Undoubtedly.

Rural? Positively.

Hugely exciting for the elegant, refined, often under-valued Riesling, Chardonnay, Cabernet, Shiraz…even Grenache and Mourvèdre?!

You betcha. 

So join us on this thrilling journey of discovery, where we paint a soundscape as well as a taste map, and meet wonderful wine personalities who talk us through weird and wonderful things from cuddles to Wonderbras, emperor penguins, the X-factor, shade cloth, resplendence and knitting. 

Our thanks to Western Australian government and industry for sponsoring this mini-series, whose final and concluding episode is on Margaret River.

Here’s a fun reel that captures things pretty nicely:

Starring

• Tom Wisdom and Mike Garland (Plantagenet Wines)
• Erin Larkin (Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate)
• Guy Lyons (Forest Hill Vineyard)
• Patrick Corbett (Singlefile Wines)
• Matt Swinney, Rob Mann and Sid the Dog (Swinney)
• Marelize Russouw (Alkoomi Wines)
• Larry Cherubino (Cherubino Wines)
• Susie & Peter
• Supporting cast: frogs, birds and fire

Links

• Here’s an article Peter’s just had published on Decanter Premium (so behind a paywall) – On the Road with Larry Cherubino
• If you’d like a bit more detail, here’s a Regional Fact Sheet on the Great Southern
• You can find our podcast on all major audio players: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, Amazon and beyond. If you’re on a mobile, the button below will redirect you automatically to this episode on an audio platform on your device. (If you’re on a PC or desktop, it will just return you to this page – in which case, get your phone out! Or find one of the above platforms on your browser.)

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Wines

We’d recommend all the following Great Southern wines, which were either tasted by both of us at home in January 2025 or by Peter in Australia in November 2024.

Great Southern whites

• Tesco Finest Tingleup Riesling 2023, 12%
• Laissez Faire Riesling 2022, 12%
• Uovo Riesling 2022, Frankland River, 11.5%
• Forest Hill Vineyard Block 1 Riesling 2021, Mount Barker, 12.5%
• Forest Hill Vineyard Block 1 Riesling 2018, Mount Barker, 12.5%
• Harewood Estate Riesling 2023, Porongurup, 12%
• Dukes Vineyard Magpie Hill Reserve Riesling 2023, Porongurup, 12.3%
• Singlefile Fumé Blanc 2024, Albany, 13.3%
• Laissez Faire Fiano 2022, Frankland River, 13.5%
• Forest Hill Vineyard Block 8 Chardonnay 2021 Mount Barker, 13%
• West Cape Howe Styx Gully Chardonnay 2023, Mount Barker, 12.5%
• Singlefile The Vivienne Chardonnay 2021, Denmark, 12.9%

Great Southern reds

• Castelli Il Liris Pinot Noir 2023, Denmark, 12.5%
• Plantagenet Wyjup Collection Malbec 2021, Mount Barker, 14%
• Swinney Farvie Grenache 2022, Frankland River, 14%
• Uovo Grenache 2023, Frankland River, 14.5%
• Swinney Farvie Mourvèdre 2022, Frankland River, 14.1%
• Cherubino Nebbiolo 2022, Frankland River, 14%
• Forest Hill Vineyards Block 9 Shiraz 2018, Mount Barker, 14%
• Plantagent Wyjup Collection Cabernet Sauvignon 2020, Mount Barker, 14%
• Plantagenet Museum Cabernet Sauvignon 2002, Mount Barker, 14%
• Singlefile The Philip Adrian Cabernet Sauvignon 2021, Frankland River, 14.4%
• Alkoomi Cabernet Sauvignon 2022, Frankland River, 14.5%
• Alkoomi Cabernet Sauvignon 1987, Frankland River, 12.1%
• Forest Hill Vineyard Block 5 Cabernet Sauvignon 2023, Mount Barker, 14%
• Cherubino Riversdale Cabernet/Malbec/Petit Verdot 2021, Frankland River, 14%

Images

Photos taken November 2024. You’ll need to listen to the episode to understand the context for some of these…

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Transcript

NB: This transcript is AI generated. It’s not perfect

Susie: Hello and welcome to Wine Blast! No need to adjust your device or call the emergency services. Our podcast studio has not been flooded…with wine or anything else! No, this is the sound of the ocean shore at Greens Pool in Western Australia, where, as you look out over the crashing waves, the next stop is Antarctica.

Peter: Yes, welcome to Wine Blast. And welcome to the magic and mystery of the great Southern wine region, arguably Western Australia’s best kept secret. So let’s go marauding together through the place with some of the oldest soils on Earth and some of the most exciting new wave wines on the planet. Here’s a taster, of what’s coming up:

Tom Wisdom: We are a mysterious region. I think it’s an outstanding story to be uncovered.

Erin Larkin: I mean, it’s dry, it’s big, this huge sky, it’s got this vast kind of feeling to it. Woof – those wines are unreal.

Rob Mann: Wines with real joy and lustre and vibrancy – the people making them, they’re the ones you want to sit around a table with.

Sid: *panting*

Susie: Respectively there: Tom Wisdom, Erin Larkin, Rob Mann and Sid the Dog, all of whom we’ll be sitting around the table with in this programme. Yep, even Sid! We’ll also be hearing from other leading wine lights in the region, as well as soaking up some extra bits and bobs along the way.

Peter: Yes, we wanted to do something different from the Wine Blast norm here, because this is a very special two-part miniseries on Western Australia focusing on the Great Southern and Margaret River wine region. So we are super excited to be doing this. Yeah.

Susie: So, so what we’re going to do, is invite you. Aren’t we on a road trip with us, via the magic of the pod, where you’ll not only get all the juicy wine low, but also, more broadly, get a real feel for the place, its people, landscapes, wildlife, food and of course, its wines. We’ll be painting a soundscape as well as a taste map, all brought to vivid life by the wonderful personalities we’re going to meet along the way.

Peter: And those personalities will be talking us through weird and wonderful things, from cuddles to Wonderbras, Emperor penguins, the X Factor, shade cloth, resplendence and knitting. And maybe even a bit of wine too! You never know, you might get some of that in the mix. At this stage, we’d like to thank the Western Australian government and industry for sponsoring this mini-series and enabling us to bring this delightful world to you. It’s, going to be quite the journey, so strap in, let’s get going.

Susie: Okay, so by way of context, Australia is vast. The sixth largest country in the world, the largest island on Earth, and the flattest and driest inhabited continent. From a geological point of view, it’s old. The Porongurup Range in the Great Southern are some of the oldest rocks on the Earth’s land surface today. And from these ancient soils spring not just the mineral wealth that fuels Western Australia’s mining sector, but also its world class wines.

Peter: Now, we’ve featured Australian wine many times on the pod before, but this is the first time we’re honing in on Western Australia, which also happens to be one of our favourite Australian states for wine. I think it’s fair to say Western Australia is enormous. it covers a third of Australia’s land mass. To give you an idea of scale, if Western Australia were a country, it would be one of the biggest. and the state capital, Perth, is closer to Jakarta in Indonesia than it is to Sydney on Australia’s east coast.

Susie: So the key point here is that Western Australia, as it was described to us, is like, and I quote, an island within an island, a place unto its own, with wines to match. You know, if being geographically far flung is a feeling, it’s certainly what you feel standing in a vineyard. In the Great Southern. The sky is huge, nature looms large and loud. There’s a sense of discovery and adventure here.

Peter: There are several wine regions within Western Australia. we’ll come on to its most famous Margaret river in the next episode. In this programme though, we’re getting to know the most southerly, remote and expansive of them all. The Great Southern.

Susie: Yeah. Now I think it’s fair to say that most people won’t be overly familiar with the Great Southern, even us. you know, we tasted quite a few of the wines before making this programme, but I still don’t think we’ve got our heads around it. So let’s start with some basics. I think it probably helps if you start by thinking of the Great Southern as a wine region that looks out towards the Southern Ocean and Antarctica. So we’re talking a, mild, not hot

00:05:00

Susie: climate, cooler in many spots than Margaret River.

Peter: Yeah, yeah. That said, there’s quite a bit of climatic diversity within Great Southern because, you know, it’s a big old region covering about 20,000 square kilometres in total. This is Australia’s largest GI by land size. Really though, rather than thinking of it as one homogenous region, it’s possibly more helpful to think of it as a collection of sub regions, all of which have their own identity.

Susie: Now, the two biggest are also the two oldest wine areas. You’ve got Frankland River, the most inland area, hence the the warmest and driest, and Mount Barker in the centre of the region along the coast. So cooler and wetter, you have Denmark and Albany. And then finally you have Porongurup where easterly winds and higher elevations come into play.

Peter: We’ll these individual regions and what they mean for the wines in due course, so don’t worry too much about that. but a couple of other things to bear in mind before we get started. this is a relatively young region in wine terms, although vines have been around since probably the mid-1800s. The first modern commercial plantations didn’t go in until 1965 after studies identified this area as suitable for wine. Also, it’s quite rural infield. This is a land of livestock, of dairy and arable farming, with sort of a bit of fishing on the coasts. Wine traditionally has been something of a farmer’s sideline here.

Susie: also, while the great Southern may be big in geography, it’s actually relatively small in wine terms. And there are just over 2,500 hectares of vineyards planted, which is less than 2% of Australia’s total. This is a land of smaller growers, albeit sometimes supplying fruit to some of the country’s best known and most acclaimed wine brands. And it’s tended to major on promoting Riesling and Shiraz as its kind of standard bearer grape varieties, if you like.

Peter: Yeah. So all of this, you know, I find intriguing. I mean, this sort of slightly mysterious region, middle of nowhere, which clearly has this huge potential. Yeah. Which is flying under the radar. Anyway, long story short, I gamely volunteered to head out there, strap my travelling boots on once more for the wine blast cause. And when I got there, 15 odd thousand kilometres later, do you know what was waiting for me?

Susie: No.

Peter: No. Well, Patrick Corbett of Single File Wines is waiting for me with this question:

Patrick Corbett: Where’s Susie??!! I thought I was going to meet Susie! I was looking forward to meeting you but….

Peter: No, no, you were looking forward to meeting Susie,

Patrick Corbett: but I was really looking forward to Susie…

Peter: You’re really disappointed. You got me. what can I say other than that. It’s always the reaction. I can only apologise heartily.

Patrick Corbett: And Susie we look forward to meeting you at some stage.

Peter: Thank you. But that’s a lovely. That’s a lovely thing to say.

Susie: That’s so nice. At least somebody wants me. So this definitely means I get to Go next time and you stay at home.

Peter: M. Right. Well, you know, clearly I just don’t cut the mustard in the way that you do. I don’t know what the magic is. You know, if I had a penny for every time I’d had that reaction.

Susie: Not true, mind you.

Peter: You know, I did get a warm welcome actually thinking about it, from the official at the passport control when I got to Australia, who, he sort of ushered me into the VIP queue and, and he said, ‘We like Poms here, you know.’

Susie: Please don’t ever attempt an Australian accent again. And definitely not in the passport queue. You’re going to be kicked out before you even get in. but no, you were the lucky one to go on this particular trip. And maybe next time we’ll get to go together. Anyway, you started in Perth, didn’t you, before driving down to the Great Southern, a full four hours away.

Peter: Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so our first leg on this magical mystery road trip is with Tom Wisdom, owner of Plantagenet Wines, also chair of the Great Southern Wine Producers Association. Lovely guy. I’d highly recommend him, actually, as a very smooth, very steady driver. he’s got a great eye as well. This is important for snack based pit stops. he introduced me, he introduced me to the epic combination of a flat white and a sausage roll with sauce. So of course I immediately squirted said sauce all over my clean shirt.

Susie: That’s what  it was!!

Peter: Was it? and this is also while we were foraging for wild asparagus by the roadside. It was all going on.

Susie: Doesn’t sound like your average pit stop, does it? I mean, I don’t very often forage for wild asparagus by the side of the A33 heading to Basingstoke.

Peter: Well, this wasn’t your average roadside pit stop. I guess I didn’t think anything in this part of the world is average. Anyway. for example, you know, in another pit stop, after seeing a big old tiger snake pelting it across the road to get away from a controlled forest fire, which are, ah, pretty common in the region, Tom pulled over, leapt out, shouted at me to follow him so I could record the sounds of the crackling bush on fire. I mean, this is the guy, you know. So this was the price of getting my feet very toasty.

Susie: So are these, these fires common then?

Peter: Yeah, I think so. Relatively. I, think they do control burns to sort of clear the, the brush to help prevent uncontrolled fires later on in the season,

00:10:00

Peter: you know, which, which can be a big Issue in the summer in Australia. And of course you know, it’s an increasing issue in many parts of the world, as we sadly know. But anyway, back to wine. Plantagenet is one of the region’s best established producers, based in Mount Barker, right in the middle of the region and has made its name with sort of steely Riesling, elegant Shiraz and age worthy Cabernet. I, asked Tom what makes this place special.

Tom Wisdom: Diversity, cool climate and its natural pristine surrounds is what is interesting around this area. The Great Southern is such a huge geographical area. Like it’s 200 kilometres by 100 kilometres. It’s the largest GI in Australia quite easily. So when you travel around the Great Southern, there’s no guarantee that one place is going to be the same as the next place. You’re looking at site specific things. You’re looking at individual, sub regional characters. so that’s what’s exciting for me is that everywhere you go in the Great Southern, it’s going to be different from the next place. There’s so much to see and do.

Peter: But if there’s so many differences, that’s quite difficult to sum that up in catchphrase. for the region to explain what Great Southern wine tastes like, it’s almost impossible.

Tom Wisdom: There is so much experimentation, so much discovery that needs to go on to even get close to describing it. I think, the mystery is important to us. I think, you know, that journey of discovery is important.

Peter: so you like being mysterious, do you?!

Tom Wisdom: We very much like being mysterious! We are a mysterious region. Not many people could hand on heart, say they know intimately the Great Southern. So the challenge is to say to people, come down and see the Great Southern because once you’re here you’ll be surprised.

Susie: So the allure of the magical mystery tour…

Peter: indeed, you know, and what Tom was saying there, you can pretty much grow most things in Great Southern, it’s all about the site. So some of the Plantagenet wines that excited me most were their really elegant perfume tense Cabernet Sauvignons. Also their vibrant Malbec. when I went to visit their vineyards, and saw the Cabernet and the Malbec plantings In the late 60s, early 70s, I think, you know, some of the oldest Cabernet plantings in Western Australia, Tom said to me, I think Cabernet’s got amazing potential from the Great Southern. So I asked him to define the style of Great Southern Cabernet.

Tom Wisdom: It’s a really unique, cool climate expression of Cabernet. It’s a long growing season and we talk about site. That site’s really important because let’s not beat around the bush. It’s cool climate. Sometimes it’s hard to get Cabernet ripe. It often in the Southern hemisphere, we’re talking will sneak into May in terms of a harvest date.

Peter: So there’s chance, which is the equivalent of November I think in the Northern hemisphere. Yes.

Tom Wisdom: So there’s challenges, viticulturally in terms of ripeness. But I think in those vineyards that are, that are aged, and we’re talking 50, year old vines, I think not heavily cropped, the viticulture is correct, the canopies are healthy when you get all those things right and the phenolic ripeness equals the sugar ripeness, equals the flavour ripeness when those things come together, I think in the right seasons, I think, you know, Mount Barker and Great Southern Cabernet’s got a lot of things going for it and I think there’s a few producers around the region that can lay claim to having some of the better Cabernets in Australia.

Peter: So you would say Cabernet from Great Southern can be up there with the very greatest Cabernets from Australia?

Tom Wisdom: I think the potential is there, yes. and I think just now we’re starting to see just the early engagement and recognition around Great Southern Cabernet. I think it’s an outstanding story to be uncovered.

Susie: So would you say then that Cabernet for you is a real star in the region?

Peter: 100%. 100%. Not in every site, but certainly in Mount Barker and Frankland River. I tried some absolutely beautiful, kind of insistent, fine boned, really perfumed Cabernets, you know, maybe slightly less plush than the Cabernets coming out of Margaret river, but you know, I think they deserve to be better known here.

Susie: And do you think the, the Great Southern majors on Riesling in Shiraz and doesn’t necessarily push Cabernet and Chardonnay so much to differentiate itself from Margaret River?

Peter: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I do actually. And I can understand that. You know, of course Margaret river looms very large. it’s globally famous. But you know, Cabernet can be outstanding in the Great Southern and maybe sometimes without the price tag of Margaret river and in a slightly different style. And something else that’s good as well is Malbec here. I tried really good examples in a couple of places, but Plantagenet recently started bottling the Malbec from their old vine plot and it’s just sensational. It’s floral and peppery and savoury and crunchy. So I asked Plantagenet winemaker Mike Garland to describe his style of Malbec. It’s great.

Mike Garland: It’s a fun wine to make. you know, it’s, got lots of vitality and structure and, I often term Malbec as it’s almost like the, Wonderbra of wines just, you know, especially for blending purposes. It just has. It’s big in everything, you know, so

00:15:00

Mike Garland: makes everything look better.

Susie: I think I’m lost for words.

Peter: I was wondering what your reaction might be to that, especially seeing as this was just after he described their wine style as, and I quote, refined, elegant, by which he was of course referring to the cool climate of the region, you know, testament to which was the Emperor penguin he said that had turned up on a nearby beach the week before.

Susie: Okay, so we’re onto penguins and wonder bras. Shall we take a quick breath so we can recover our composure? To recap, so far, the Great Southern is a remote, disparate and rural wine region in Western Australia which has tended to fly under the radar, but probably not for much longer. The quality of its wines, including Cabernet Sauvignon and Malbec, is starting to make people sit up and pay attention.

Peter: In many ways, and not just us, other wine bods as well. Erin, Larkin is a wine critic who covers Australia and New Zealand for Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate, based in Western Australia. And this is what she had to say of the Great Southern.

Erin Larkin: To get to the Great Southern, it’s the size of Belgium. The closest part of the five sub regions in the Great Southern is 3 1/2 hours south of Perth. I mean, it’s dry, it’s big, this huge sky, it’s got this vast kind of feeling to it. Right, so then you’ve got these five sub regions within, and I think that all of them do Riesling really well. And I think Riesling is the star variety from the Greatrix Southern because it’s great in every part of it. but you then also have really distinct personality within that. So Porongurup for example, is probably my favourite style of Riesling. These wines are very floral, fine mineral, really long aged, just exciting, kind of very pure, crystalline sort of wines. You’ve got Frankland river, which give you these really austere, taut, laser, mineral, powerful Riesling. And you’ve got to be in the mood for that. You get to Mount Barker. and they kind of can have a combination of the two, but tend to be more like Frankland river in that they’re really, really powerful.

Peter: And if you were going to recommend some wine lover to try two wines, one white, one red, from the Great Southern, not, not naming producers. Give me a variety, and an area, what would you say?

Erin Larkin: I’d give them a Porongurup Riesling, because I would just drink the shit out of that and feel like they would too. You know, they’re just so beautiful and pure and I don’t think you can drink one without loving it. And I’d also give them a Frankland River Grenache. Now, we talk a lot about, the Great Southern being a good Grenache region, and I’d sort of counter that and say there’s a few Great Grenache vineyards in the Great Southern, as opposed to it being a great region. but those vineyards are so good that I would say that would be a very exciting moment for someone to drink a Frankland River Grenache and go, right, I didn’t know they did that. But, you know, when it comes to Cabernet in the Great Southern, woof, those wines are unreal.

Susie: So Erin’s gone big on Great Southern Riesling there. And just to be clear about the, the general context, the Rieslings from here tend to be at the dry, citric, fresh and racy end of the spectrum, don’t they? With some notable exceptions, but generally that style.

Peter: Yeah, we’ve got a couple here, haven’t we? We’ve got the, start off the Tesco Finest Tingleup Riesling 2023, which is made by Howard park in the Great Southern. It’s really kind of spritzy. Got this bright apple flavours in it. It’s dry, but it’s rounded. It’s actually really quite easy going and I think it’s great value for fresh, dry white stuff.

Susie: And we’ve also got the. The Laissez Faire Riesling 2022 by Larry Cherubino, which is a little bit more creamy, sort of baked apple floral complexity, again, dry mouth watering, but with just a slightly creamier texture.

Peter: Yeah, yeah. So I personally, on that note, tend to find that it’s the Rieslings where people are, ah, working for a bit more texture and roundness that are the most successful here. Working with sort of lees contact or subtle oak or residual sugar, just to make the wines that bit more succulent and sort of sexy, not too austere, I think, is the key thing. But generally, you know, here in the Great Southern, it’s a long growing season in a mild climate, so there’s no shortage of flavour in the grapes. And I talked to Guy Lyons, who’s winemaker at Forest Hill Vineyard and their vineyards in Mount Barker were the first of the modern era to be planted in the Great Southern back in 1960. And I asked Guy if he was moving away from the ultra bone dry, high acid Riesling style.

Guy Lyons: Definitely. I mean we’ve been guilty in the past of making, you know, like academic Riesling in a way, in the sense that it’s you. You’ve got this powerful dimension and long, long line and they’ll live forever, but they perhaps challenging as younger wine. So we’re certainly trying to give a little bit more of a cuddle earlier on, a bit more of, you know, add a little bit more fat to the bone. And that’s, I guess stylistically where we’re heading because, I mean, I just love textual Riesling as well. And looking at Riesling not just

00:20:00

Guy Lyons: being in a, mono dimensional way and not sterile, but you know something, you know, we all love Chardonnay in Australia and we’re all very forgiving of lots of different styles of Chardonnay and Australia makes fantastic Chardonnay. And I think you can look at Riesling in a little bit more of a similar way that, you know, some different oak use and you know, different solids. And so all those little things, can help contribute to, I guess, more complex and interesting wines.

Peter: So Rieslings with more cuddles and less academic haughtiness?

Guy Lyons: I think so. Yeah, I think so.

Peter: We can all use more cuddles and I like, can’t we?

Susie: Guy made wine in Germany, writes.

Peter: Yeah, that’s right. he’s an interesting winemaker, a real sort of thinker and what he’s doing with Riesling is good for the region, I think. You know, we’ve got a final Riesling here as well, which is his the Forest Hill Mount Barker Block 1, Riesling 2021. And it’s sort of fresh and vibrant, but also textured and graceful as you’re saying, isn’t it? It’s lovely stuff. but he’s also doing really interesting things with Cabernet. his Block 5 recently won an award as the best Cabernet in Australia. He’s another fan of Malbec, saying that it’s really exciting and slowly replacing Merlot in Western Australia for a lot of producers, often to blend with Cabernet to add sort of fruit weight and perfume.

Susie: And Syrah or Shiraz is another interesting one because we’ve said it’s one of the flagship grape varieties of Great Southern. Along with Riesling. The style here is typically described as more medium bodied, isn’t it? Perfumed, elegant. but again it’s all about the right sight and winemaking.

Peter: Yeah, I mean the Forest Hill Syrahs were some of the best I tried in the region. Guy said he uses things like whole bunch fermentation, larger format oak and less extraction. Trying to generate perfume without sort of heft or extraction or heaviness. I describe them as savoury, slightly wild wines.

Guy Lyons: Yeah, definitely. I think there’s like we. And that’s what I think we get a really Umami sort of character to some of our Shiraz down, down, in our region, which I think, you know, is a bit of X factor, I think in a way which can give that complexity and interest. You know, that’s what we all want in wine, I think is something that’s going to be intriguing. Makes you want to smell it and taste it and, and sit on it. so I really think there’s Shiraz is really exciting in our region. And and I think with the. We’re farming Shiraz better as well and there’s some new clones which are getting, brought into the region which I think is really exciting for Shiraz for us over the next, you know, 10, 20 years.

Peter: But how important do you think site selection is for Shiraz?

Guy Lyons: Ah, crucial. I mean, I think Shiraz can very easily be mediocre and to get great Shiraz you need to have really great site and you’ve got to farm it hard.

Susie: Now Guy is also making really good Chardonnay and we’ve got one here. It’s the deliciously nutty but also really vibrant and refreshing. Forest Hill Block 8 Chardonnay 2021. So here’s what Guy had to say about Chardonnay in Great Southern

Guy Lyons: More generally we get great longevity in our Chardonnay. We get this powerful core of sort of citrus and white stone fruit flavour, lots, of sort of nuttiness. and they’ve definitely had this ability to age down our way. We get great weight of fruit but also natural, acidity. So it’s completely underrated. Chardonnay in our region. we I think it’s probably one of the areas where we can probably talk about a little bit more Because I think they’re pretty. They can hold themselves with the other state’s best Chardonnays.

Peter: Do you think Great Southern as a whole is underestimated? Undervalued?

Guy Lyons: I think so in just. We’re a very few number of producers in a very large area. So, But that diversity and that isolation and the beauty of the region is also what’s fantastic about the region. And it’s such an exciting region. As I sort of said to you. We’ve got one little pocket in the middle of nowhere in the Great Southern, and we’ve produced Cabernet, which took out Best Cabernet Trophy in Australia. And I think that’s quite exciting and shows, I guess, the. What we’ve got down here is pretty special and that the place is unique and interesting to grow grapes.

Peter: I have to say, I was blown away by the quality of the Chardonnays I tasted in the Great Southern. I found so many to love, such freshness and elegance and savoury complexity. And one of my favourite Chardonnays was from Single File down in Denmark on the coast in the cooler part of the Great Southern, near that chilly ocean.

Susie: And this is where the lovely Patrick Corbett our. To me, wasn’t it?

Peter: It was indeed the very same. Now, Single File are interesting because their approach is to source wines from all over the Great Southern, according to which variety does best, where. So they source from 12 vineyard sites

00:25:00

Peter: across the five sub regions. and this makes for some absolutely stunning wines. Their Fume Blanc Sauvignon Blanc from Albany, the Vivienne Chardonnay from Denmark and the Philip Adrian Cabernet from Frankland river are sensational. The, ones that I tried, so, you know, they have a good overview of the whole region which I asked Patrick to share. And just to clarify, Mataro is another name for Mourvedre.

Patrick Corbett: Yeah. So I would say our journey started in Denmark and sort of from our perspective, we see early ripening whites. Chardonnay Sav Blanc, perhaps Riesling in the Rice site. Great. Around the Albany, and Denmark regions, to the northeast, the Porongurup Range, there’s a rain shadow just behind the Porongurup Mountain range, which is ideal for Riesling and Pinot Noir. If we come across to Mount Barker, many of the more established vineyards first planted there in the 70s and 80s, there’s a number of different varieties that thrive there. For, us particularly, we like, Tempranillo and Pinot Noir. And then if we go north west to the Frankland river, region. The later ripening red varieties grow really well there. We’re really excited about Cabernet, Grenache, Shiraz and Mataro and that, really, 17 years on the journey, we’ve got to the point where we feel as though we found the right sites for the varieties we want to focus our attention on.

Peter: So for you is therefore, is this a region where it’s all about diversity? Is that the most important message here?

Patrick Corbett: Yeah, for me, I think getting, I understand why, but often one thinks of Brossa, you think of Shiraz, or if you think of Burgundy, you think of Pinot and Chardonnay, you think of Napa, you think of Cabernet. I think there’s a danger of falling into that trap with the grace Southern, just by nature of its size. for me, it’s actually all about the diversity. I don’t think. I’m sure others might have a different point of view, but I don’t think there’s many regions in the world where you can genuinely produce world class Riesling, Chardonnay, Pinot, Shiraz, Cabernet, and perhaps Grenache.

Peter: Across all these different styles, is there something that unites a thread that runs through all these wines that speaks to the great Southern? Is there one? And if so, what would it be?

Patrick Corbett: I mean, that’s a great question. And for me, definitely that sort of cool climate style, sits across those, different vineyards that we are working with. that sort of elegance, food friendly, is certainly a focus for us in terms of the styles we’re trying to make. But, I think, yeah, natural acidity, a really nice elegance, cool climate style would be how I would try to describe it. For me, it feels like just the beginning of the great Southern Southern journey. I think most people would not be aware of the great Southern. obviously in Australia there’s an awareness, but I would suggest that we’re very much in the infancy of starting to tell our story to the broader market. So I see a pretty exciting times ahead.

Susie: So what’s the Denmark region like?

Peter: It’s so cool. you’ve got literally. Well, yeah, literally in all sense of the world. You know, you’ve got this beautiful coastline. It’s great to visit with cellar doors and restaurants. It’s pretty remote, but, you know, it feels less, less off the beaten track than say, Frankland River. You know, I did do a bit of communing with nature while I was there. Don’t look at me like that. I did, I saw stingrays, saw stingrays. In the sea. I got dive bombed by a kookaburra while trying to record birdsong. You know, that seemed to amuse Patrick no end, I have to say. Dive out on that one and. And then as we stumbled out of there at midnight, we popped down to the lake to listen to the frog.

Susie: I was actually waiting for the big splash as you fell in after all that Chardonnay. Now, I thought Patrick’s overview of the, of the Great Southern was really helpful, but one thing I did pick up on was the fact that he mentioned Grenache. Like Erin. Now, I’ve looked at, the planting figures and the most planted varieties in the Great Southern are Shiraz and Cabernet. But there’s no mention at all of things like Grenache. It’s, it’s not the most obvious option.

Peter: It’s a very, very fair point. So to explore this a bit more, I went to visit Swinney in Frankland River. Remember, Frankland river is the warmest, driest part of the Great Southern. Still not hot, but with warmer days and then cool nights. So perhaps more continental, than other Great Southern sub regions like Denmark. It’s pretty rural. And, I was there with co owner Matt Swinney and his winemaker Rob Mann, who comes from a long line of celebrated Western Australian winemakers.

Susie: And the Swinneys, they have qu. Interesting story, don’t they? You know, I was reading about this and they had a big sheep farm for merino wool. Any fellow knitwear fans will know all about merino wool. but they had to sell the sheep and move into timber and wine, which at the time was a bit of a wrench, but ultimately proved a very good move. And now, they’ve got a brilliant business model which involves growing quality

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Susie: grapes that they sell to a pretty impressive client list, but also using some of their best fruit to make their own wines, including their tip top father line, which in turn act as the perfect advert for their grape growing business.

Peter: There you go. What a business. and they’ve been brave, actually, and planted a whole range of varieties. but the boldest move was planting Grenache and Mourvedre in bush vines rather than on trellises, which is an expensive way to do things in Australia where labour is costly. And to manage bush vines you need a lot of labour. So I asked Matt Swinney why

Matt Swinney: It came from really seeing some beautiful vineyards in Spain and France. It’s that simple. And Frankland river was doing well with Syrah, with Shiraz, and so climatically Frankland river is very similar to the Northern Rhone. So, clearly with this history there with Shiraz, but no one’s doing Grenache, even thinking about Grenache Lilian River. So I thought if we plant Grenache on the right site, the right aspect, on the right soil type and as bush vines, it’s got every chance I thought of performing. at the time, we tried to get that view endorsed by experts and viticulturists and some of our neighbours, in fact, and there wasn’t much support for the idea. People thought, we’re just barking mad planting Grenache.

Peter: Why did, why did they think you were barking mad planting grenades?

Matt Swinney: Because we’re in a very cool, traditionally very cool climate region. And people just said, it won’t ripen. So, yeah, I had the discussion with a lot of people and they just said, good luck with that. So we didn’t even talk about moved, given how late it ripens compared to Grenache and Syrah. but, yeah, fortunately. Fortunately, it does ripen, particularly as bush vines and on the right aspect on ironstone gravel, it ripens pretty well. And the beauty of it, of course, is that when you grow things on the cusp of where it probably shouldn’t grow, you know, the warmest site in the coolest regions, you can get something pretty remarkable. And that’s what’s happened with Grenache Mourvedre. You know, that the tannin structure is quite different and, you know, the wines are probably, ah, darker and there’s probably a very different tannin profile. it’s a real wildness and mystery to them, I think, compared to what people think of, for Australian Grenache and Mourvedre.

Peter: And given how the wines have turned out, you know, how do you think of them in terms of the context of Australian wine?

Matt Swinney: We have pretty audacious aspirations and always have had, and we knew that we had to be completely uncompromising in the vineyard. I think they’ve achieved the objective from the point of view that made people look at Frankland river and they’re very different from what people expected. And in, ah, a good way. In a very good way. And there’s something very nice about doing something people don’t expect you to do. Everyone said Grenache won’t work and moved won’t work. Well, guess what? Works really well

Susie: We’ve got both the 2022 Farvie Grenache and Mourvedre here. And they’re stunning, aren’t they? You know, beautifully perfumed, the Grenache more bright Cherry, fruit and herbs. The Mourvedre more meaty, sort of brooding in style. But both have this amazing tannic structure which Matt was referring to there. Super fine, abundant mouth coating tannin. It makes them really intriguing and moreish and, and food friendly.

Peter: Yeah. Ah, it’s very different in the Australian context. No, and very different. It’s almost in the global context. You know, the Farvie Syrah is pretty impressive too, but it’s great to have these, these two wines here precisely because they do show the potential of Frankland river and Great Southern in general to do audacious things to make wines right across the spectrum that major on elegance and freshness, but also have character and complexity, you know, even when they’re somewhat surprising, like Grenache and Mourvedre.

Susie: And I guess with Rob Mann, they’ve got a pretty well respected winemaker at the helm too, haven’t they?

Peter: Absolutely, indeed. You know, so Rob’s grandfather Jack Mann was a legendary figure in Western Australian winemaking. And Rob is a great guy, very well respected. incidentally, he taught me the virtues of Australian toast during this visit. Australian toast is.

Susie: Do you want to enlighten us?

Peter: It’s a breakfast dish that involves cheap white bread, butter, vegemite and avocado. see, I’m not selling it to you.

Susie: I like the butter and avocado.

Peter: I was profoundly sceptical before I tried it when I was looking at him eating it, but he made me want it. Totally won me over.

Susie: You are a Marmite fan. You are a Marmite fan.

Peter: Is true. And I’m very open minded as well. I would describe it slightly outlandish but delicious. And I just wonder

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Peter: if that works as a description for Rob’s wines as well.

Susie: I’m m not sure he’ll thank you for that. But just to remind me, didn’t you have another food epiphany with Rob and Matt also involving cheap white bread?

Peter: Well said. Well said. The MARRON! Omg. this was life changing. So after a long day and a long tasting, Matt asked me, sort of casually if I was okay catching my own supper. I really wasn’t. I wish I’d seen your face nonplussed at that stage. But then he took me down to a reservoir, and made me haul out a lobster pot on a rope. And inside the pot was this huge black lobster like thing. Actually a local species of crayfish called marron, I later found out. Anyway, we took that back, popped, ah, a couple of them in the pots, boiled them up, served Them on a newspaper with cheap white bread, lemon, juice and mayonnai. It was sensational.

Susie: It’s not every day you get to taste something completely new, is it? I have to admit, I am just a tiny bit jealous. Yeah.

Peter: I cannot recommend marron highly enough. Apparently they don’t travel, which is why, you know, you don’t get them all over.

Susie: You didn’t put one in your suitcase.

Peter: I did not, no.

Susie: You’d have had the whole thing to yourself, really, wouldn’t you?

Peter: Ah, exactly. Probably. anyway, it went so well this marron with a couple of older Chardonnays that Robert brought. Anyway, suffice it to say, people eat well in this part of the world. And they also drink well, of course, partly because of people like Rob Mann. So, anyway, I asked Rob, while Matt was boiling the marron and making dinner in the background, what the secret is to making such amazing Grenache and Mourvedre.

Rob Mann: The, secret behind the success of Grenache and Mourvedre is, an ambition and an unrelenting pursuit of personality in wine. In exploring the limits of these varieties, where we grow them, I would consider it a marginal climate for particularly Grenache. And moved. Moved even more so because it typically ripens, you know, seven to ten days after Grenache. but I think what’s totally unique about the varieties grown here is we grow them as bush vines, we grow them organically. They’re farmed, without any irrigation. The, whole aim is to sort of capture a sense of Frankland river in the wines and, you know, exclude the winemaking influence. We like to say we want the. We want the wines to scream of the sight and whisper of the winemaker. my grandfather, who was a well known winemaker, had this term which was called resplendence. He wants to see the sort of, the light, the shining light in the wine. And wine should make you smile. Wine, after all, is just. Is just a food that complements, hopefully, fresh produce, regional produce, and at its best, it makes the food taste better. Great food makes the wine taste better. so if everything’s complementing each other, it makes, for a really great experience.

Peter: Resplendence in wine. That’s the most wonderful thing. I’ve never really heard the expression.

Rob Mann: It’s the most beautiful word.

Peter: It captures so many things.

Rob Mann: Yeah. So when you use on your next podcast, I’ll know. But it’s something that comes up, you know, this sort of inner light, this freshness, this brightness, this sense of clarity. And myself growing up in a Family. We’re very classical winemakers. We make wines in a very sort of medium bodied, polished, refined, textural wines that have great drinkability and longevity. For me, I couldn’t understand why everyone was making these big, thick, oaky, dense, undrinkable wines. They were great to look at, but you couldn’t enjoy them. I like to open a great bottle of wine and drink half the bottle with my wife, not half a glass. so I think wine drinkability in wine is critical. And when you lose sight of that, I think you’re losing sight of why you’re making wine. So, for me, great wine is an exercise in restraint and refinement. And bigger is not better. The more money you throw at it doesn’t make a better wine. the best wines in the world, in my view, have the least amount of effort. It takes a lot of effort to make a commercial, big volume wine from very marginal fruit. That’s winemaking. My grandfather said, you know, nature is the winemaker. And if man allows nature to perform to its best advantage, that’s the art of winemaking. Let nature do the work. So in my view, wine, has to be a direct extension of the place and the site articulated through the influence of the custodian. But ultimately it’s when you can achieve that in my own wine or when I see that in wines from all around the world, that’s when I get excited. That’s when what makes me smile, that’s what gets me out of bed. For me, the great wines are wines that have this, sense of balance that make you smile. don’t make you frown. It’s a bit like people’s, ah, dogs remind

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Rob Mann: you of their owners, in wine. Like grumpy people make grumpy wine and it shows in the wine. You can taste the wine and go, wow, that makes me frown. Like what’s happened there. wines with real joy and lustre and vibrancy. The people making them, they’re the ones you want to sit around a table with. And I’ve learned, to be much more joyful and expressive and positive about the wines I’m making. As I’ve got older than when I was younger, who I used to fight against myself all the time, frustrated that I couldn’t achieve what I wanted to do. I think you could see that in the wine. So, now that we’ve sort of have a degree of maturity and can step, step back and look at the, look at what we’ve achieved collectively it can be really proud. And I think that shows in the wine.

Susie: Wines are to winemakers like dogs are to their owners. That’s so funny. But I do know what he means in that some wines are just joyful. They just bring a smile to your face. And these are like that.

Peter: Exactly. This wine, which I’m drinking right now, is bringing a smile to my face. And that word resplendent, you know, I am definitely going to pinch that word. It is great, isn’t. You know, it just speaks to the sort of energy and brightness that those great wines have, you know, without being overbearing. Rob describes his winemaking style as neoclassical, so having an eye on the great classic wines of the world, like, say, Cote Roti, to help make complex, elegant wines. and, you know, he’s got a big focus on tannins. He likes to say he’s in the business of farming tannins. and in the Grenache, for example, he describes Italians as quite sort of Northern Italian in style. So that, you know, they’re firm and abundant, but also quite fine and velvety.

Susie: And just a final point at, Swinney They’re also doing something interesting with deliberately shading fruit in the vineyard, aren’t they?

Peter: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It’s a detail, but an interesting one. And, they use this shade cloth or fine netting on the side of the trellis vines that gets the warm afternoon sun. It blocks about 30% of the sunlight and it means you reduce the overripe cooked fruit flavours in the wines and you also ensure better tannin ripeness and quality. Here’s what Rob had to say.

Rob Mann: Yeah, we did some side by side trials making the wine from shade cloth to non shade cloth Shiraz fruit. And, essentially we had two glasses of wine in front of us. One looked classically Australian and voluptuous and rich and powerful and dark fruit, but heavy, grippier tannin. And the one next to it with the shade cloth, peppery, spicy blue fruit, better colour. It was, more medium bodied, but had much more fruit vibrancy and clarity. And so essentially we thought, oh, the one on the left, that looks Australian and the one on the right, well, that looks Northern Rhone. Same vineyard only. The only difference, the use of shade cloth, it can have an impact and it’s just one of the, you know, cumulative things you do viticulturally to try and improve the style of wine you’re looking for.

Susie: Interesting. Yeah. I wonder if we’ll be seeing more of this kind of thing more often in Warmer parts of the winemaking world. And I guess the extra cost. Cost will mean it’s mainly for more expensive wines, but still really interesting. Now, I know you wanted to feature, Sid the dog here because Sid is Matt Swinny’s dog. A lovely, energetic, rather naughty two year old border collie. But time is running away with us, so I’m sorry, Sid, but I think we need to move on swiftly to the final straight.

Peter: Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, Sid. just a couple more pit stops to feature. One was Alkoomi Ah, the winery next door to Swinney in Frankland river, one of the region’s pioneers, where owner Sandy Hallett noted how while the area had made its name with Riesling and Shiraz, it lends itself to growing all kinds of varieties. Now, winemaker Marelize Russouw is originally from South Africa, but said the following of her adopted home of Frankland River.

Marilees Roussow: I think the acid line in the wines from Frankland river plays a big role, the intensity of the fruit. So we have cold mornings, cold nights, we can leave our fruit until they are fully ripened. So we develop extremely great varietal characters. And we have the acid line, I think Frankland River has. We are getting known for having these small little, people making more interesting wines. So people are doing interesting parcels and interesting, varieties, and they’re trying different things. Frankland took a long time maybe to get on the map, but I think people now have the confidence to try new things, and just, you know, get to something different than the other regions or try something different. we don’t need that much oak, we don’t need that much winemaking really. the fruit speaks for itself and I think Frankendrover has a good future. We do things our way.

Susie: There is a brightness to the great southern wines. I agree. And it’s always fantastic to see new and exciting things.

Peter: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I could be experimenting with skin contact

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Peter: Gewurztraminer and Chenin Blanc. they’re doing longer Lise Age Riesling playing around with small batches of Cabernet Franc. And Marelize is another fan of Cabernet Sauvignon in the region too. I really enjoyed, for example, a, 1987 Alkoomi Frankland Cabernet, which was just so scented and fine boned, still quite fresh. Stunning.

Susie: Okay, so we’ve got one final pit stop on our great southern odyssey, and that’s with a well known name, the winemaking rock star, who is Larry Cherubino.

Peter: Yeah, Larry’s probably one of the best known winemakers from this region. Italian heritage, restless spirit, very thoughtful and determined character. He, makes wine in Margaret river as well as Great Southern. He’s focused on making elegant, honest wines that are all about the variety and the site rather than the winemaking technique.

Susie: And he’s planting loads of things in Frankland river, isn’t he? And, you know, he’s got all the usual suspects, but then things like Nebbiolo, Fiano, Counoise, Turiga Nacional, Mencia.

Peter: Yeah, talking of Timoraso and various other things. Arnais, as well. But, you know, Larry’s made wine all over the world, so he’s got a great perspective and he says experimentation is a feature of the Great Southern right now. So, for example, we had a fantastic bottle of his 2022 Frankland River Nebbiolo. And it was gorgeous, you know, so elegant and grippy. It was good when we tasted it in the morning, but excellent when we had the same bottle with later on with sort of braised veal cappelletti pasta and burnt butter sauce and sage in the evening. Oh, my word, it had, He said, I’ve drunk a lot of Nebbiolo to get to this point and.

Susie: Probably eat a lot of lovely pasta as well.

Peter: There you go. Anyway, I asked Larry how he would describe the Great Southern and its wines.

Larry Cherubino: It’s vast, big horizons, big skies. But I would always describe a lot of the wines with a lot of flavour on a light frame and with acidities that are really coated by lots of flavour and tannin.

Peter: Difficult question, but if you had to summarise what makes wines from this part of the world, you. What would it be?

Larry Cherubino: Well, you know, obviously it’s pretty isolated. They are different in the point, from the point of view that there’s a. There’s a clarity to them, that you don’t often see from wines from other places around the world. You know, it’s a beautiful place. I think it’s typical of farming and I think, someone summed it up. An old farmer summed it up, up really well. If you have to try too hard to grow something, it means you shouldn’t be doing it. And there’s a bunch of varieties that we have here that we. That we excel at and we don’t have to try too hard because it just happens. So I think that’s probably. Probably sums it up really well.

Peter: How do you see the future for wines from this part of the world?

Larry Cherubino: You know, anyone who owns a vineyard is a farmer and you know, and then if you own a winery and then you market wine, you’re just a fancy farmer, you know, so. And, you know, we’re not like Jeremy Clarkson. We can’t have a TV show and just promote the hell out of ourselves. Unfortunately, that’d be pretty handy. So there’s always a. It’s not pessimism, it’s not optimism. It’s just realism. You know, at any turn of the. At any toss of the coin, you could, you know, know, get a hailstorm or a drought or Donald Trump could sort of ban imports of, you know, something that would affect the, drinking habits of, you know, 25 million Australians. So, you know, we’re realists, but, you know, you, just got to believe that you’re making a really good product and you just got to stick to your knitting and, you know, you got to get through.

Susie: You just got to stick to your knitting. What a great piece of advice for life.

Peter: Yeah. Did I mention he was a philosopher, too? yeah. Larry Cherubino, always good value and a great note to end on realism and clarity. and knitting. do you want to sum things up for us?

Susie: Good idea. okay, so the Great Southern, is a big old wine region that does an impressive job across a range of wine styles, from intense dry Riesling to elegant Chardonnay, refined Cabernet, stylish Shiraz, plus more adventurous, exciting things like Grenache, Mourvedre and Nebbiolo. This multiplicity of style, together with. With its geographical remoteness, has imbued the Great Southern with an air of mystery and magic. But now the wines defined by a natural clarity, freshness and elegance are starting to break through and gain a following. This is an intriguing wine story still in the telling, with lots more drama to come.

Peter: Yeah, you definitely get a sense that there is huge potential in the Great Southern, both for the wines to be better known, but also for more great wine sites to be discovered. Jane Lopes and Jonathan Ross write in their How to Drink Australian book, ‘The sparseness of Great Southern radiates the feeling of unmitigated possibility.’ Tom Wisdom talked of a story being uncovered and the thrill of discovery. I think that sums it all up pretty well.

Susie: Absolutely.

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Susie: So we will put tonnes of wine recommendations, as you can imagine on our website. Show notes, please do cheque those out. As well as the odd map. Know you love a map and a few other links, too.

Peter: Thanks to all our wonderful interviewees and all those in the Great Southern who so kindly hosted me. thanks. Also to Western Australian government and industry more broadly for kindly sponsoring this mini series. Don’t miss M, the next and concluding episode, where we explore the bounties of Margaret River.

Susie: Thanks to you, as ever, for listening. Until next time, cheers. We’re off for a walk with Sid the Dog in the glorious Great Southern.

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