WINE AWARDS

An outstanding wine from every angle, this satin-textured, perfumed, poised and utterly delicious red delivers all the detail of red berries, spice, savoury earthiness and layers of fine, puckering tannin. All this, delivered in a seamless flow that’s poised, vibrant, persistent and downright beautiful. That it’s gulpable, as well as something to pause and reflect on, is a distinct asset. What a wine.

The Swinney vineyard in Frankland River has long been fertile ground for outstanding wines with a roll call of exceptional viticulturists as custodians. Rhys Thomas is the current caretaker and has done the seemingly impossible task of elevating quality, again, from these vines. Alongside inherent high standard of fruit, Thomas has continued the focus on sustainable practices with a commitment to organic farming and increasing soil and vineyard health. That Swinney as a standalone producer has released some of WA’s most striking wines of recent years from this site, is one testimony to Thomas’s oeuvre, though it’s the diverse array of winemakers and producers who share fruit from the vineyard, with brilliant and striking results, that lends further credence to the formidable work that finds Thomas the recipient of this award.

Vino Volta, the standalone project of Garth Cliff and Kristen McGann, is a tearaway wine offering that has further enhanced the reputation of the homebase growing region of Swan Valley while delivering some of WA’s most exciting ‘new wines’. While Cliff and McGann have extensive wine experience prior to Vino Volta’s arrival, their VV wines seem to marry a beautiful balance between more expressive, avant garde production and science-based know-how, with a diverse array of wine styles produced each year. From pet nats to skin-fermented white wines through to elegant, finer-boned grenache, Vino Volta has wowed for its quality basis and distinct flair for wines of broad appeal – beyond this, Cliff seems to have an ingrained knowledge of distinguished vineyard sites and the bigger-picture potential available to the wonderful Swan Valley region. Kudos is due for Vino Volta’s brilliant wines.

While there was a breadth of contenders for this inaugural award, the judges were drawn to the outstanding wines, farming, longevity and general excellence under the charter of Frankland Estate. Renowned not only for the pioneering approach to Great Southern, but upper echelon wines, excellence in (organic certified) viticulture, benchmark wines from the region (and WA generally), while applying progressive mores to new-release wine styles, with a commitment to the overall betterment of Western Australia’s wine scene through participation and community-minded activity. Outstanding in all facets, Frankland Estate is at the vanguard of WA wine.

Tanzania-born Clive Otto spent his formative WA winemaking years at the vaunted Vasse Felix before joining Fraser Gallop in 2006/2007. High-quality wines, exceptional regional staples and a nous for consistency in winemaking have all underpinned his distinguished career. It was hard to ignore the talent and reach of Otto with high-calibre results for Fraser Gallop wines following the judging of this year’s WA Good Food Guide Wine Awards. This award also looks to Otto’s legacy work, with Fraser Gallop’s ascension into fine-wine territory coupled with Otto’s arrival at the winery, with judges agreeing that Otto’s deep experience and flair for elevating Margaret River staple varieties was important as an overall credential for this award. The judges deemed Otto the best candidate for this inaugural award and congratulate him on his significant impact on Western Australia wines.

This award celebrates the best of single-vineyard wines from Western Australia, with the focus on the WA Good Food Guide Wine Awards Top 25 Wines and the corresponding highest-ranked single-vineyard wine produced by a grower-producer. McHenry Hohnen takes out this honour with the stellar Hazel’s chardonnay from the distinguished Hazel’s Vineyard. The site is McHenry Hohnen’s most southerly vineyard, located not far from the bucolic town of Witchcliffe in Margaret River. The vineyard is certified biodynamic and set on free-draining, ironstone gravel loam soils. The resulting chardonnay is striking for its persistence, sense of minerality, textural nuance and general deliciousness.

The WA Good Food Guide Wine Awards values innovation and creativity in winemaking and actively seeks out top examples of distinct and diverse wines that are tasted through the wine judging period. The Oranje Tractor Elixir Botanica Vermouth is a striking, complex vermouth that marries a base of merlot wine with an array of estate-grown (and certified organic) herbs, spices, honey, florals and botanicals and nuts. Additionally, locally produced spirit fortifies the vermouth. It’s an outstanding drink, pleasing in its balance of bitterness and inherent fruitiness of merlot with a complexity derived from its varied botanical elements. Overall, it offers a general sense of high drinkability. Drink this over ice with a wedge of blood orange, legs dangling in swimming pool.

The WA Good Food Guide Wine Awards encourages the pursuit of better-practice farming in viticulture and has focused on the merits of organic and biodynamic certification as a lens for a top wine award each year. The highest ranked certified organic or certified biodynamic wine judged in the Top 25 best wines is the McHenry Hohnen 2022 Hazel’s Chardonnay. It’s a wine of immense pleasure, expressive in its reflection of the variety, and generally impressed judges for its vitality, ease of consumption and quiet complexity. It’s a wine that stands out from the crowd and is evidently grown and made from vines that have been cared for with detail.

Delivering strong DNA of Frankland River shiraz, this svelte and finely wrought shiraz is pitched perfectly at medium weight with silkiness of texture, fine, silty tannin, lavish perfume and red berry fruits at its essence. There’s plenty of the ephemeral sense of ‘complexity’ on hand and a sense that balance and length of flavour are likewise impressive. Overall, a succulent, fragrant, spicy red of top-flight calibre.

A wonderful interpretation of Margaret River’s famed white grape asset, this is a distinct chardonnay for its strong mineral character and savoury nuttiness woven through more classic green apple, stone fruit and citrus characters. A textural white of high deliciousness that shines a somewhat alternative light, positively so, on the regional hero white variety.

Swan Valley has had new life breathed into it through the eyes of younger generation and avant garde producers – Vino Volta counted among them. This is a beautifully pitched, finer-boned expression of the regional hero-red variety, grenache, that’s vividly perfumed, floral, with notes of sweet spice and cherry juice, with similar flavours set in a lighter weight frame.

While Geographe does well with lesser-sung varieties, this wine was compelling for its potency and its grace. It has a sweet spice-laced perfume and flavours with deep concentration of darker berry and plummy fruit. Hearty, with lusty tannin, it’s a ripper red of vivacious character.

Southern Forests, particularly Manjimup here, delivers an array of wine styles with regional distinction, with this sweet, naturally sparkling wine perhaps a bit out of the box. That being said, it prosecutes its case well, with sweetness balanced by crunchy acidity, frisky, persistent bubbles, and overall a stellar drinkability that thrilled judges.

Perth Hills delivers a breadth of wines and wine styles with the white variety vermentino a newer potential thanks to this wine. It delivers that sense of seaside white wine with aplomb: it’s crisp in texture, with gentle saline minerality as an undercurrent, and citrus and green apple meshed to light herbal notes as a mainstay. A thirst-quenching and revitalising, light and fresh white of great charisma.