First Taste: Leeuwin Estate Art Series new releases

The name Leeuwin Estate evokes two immediate associations: Chardonnay and quality. Now a third-generation family winery, the Margaret River estate’s vineyards were founded by Denis and Tricia Horgan in the early 1970s, under the guidance and encouragement of Robert Mondavi. The first commercial vintage was 1979 and the Hogans planted the region’s first Chardonnay vines of the Gingin clone from Moondah Brook Vineyard cuttings in 1975.

Under the team of viticulturist John Brocksopp and winemaker Bob Cartwright, the Leeuwin Estate name was quickly catapulted to international recognition when the 1981 vintage of Art Series Chardonnay was ranked top in a blind tasting of global Chardonnay by Decanter. The international acclaim put Leeuwin Estate on the map, as well as the little-known Western Australian wine region called Margaret River.

Scroll down to see notes and scores for seven Leeuwin Estate Art Series wines including two new releases

From those early days, the vineyard plantings on the property and the wine portfolio might have increased in quantity, but the label is still firmly in the hands of the family and a longstanding tight-knit winery and viticultural team. Siblings Simone Furlong and Justin Horgan have been joint CEOs of the estate since 2011.

Simone and her mother, Tricia, regularly travel to Australia’s top art fairs to secure the ideal artwork for upcoming labels in the now iconic Art Series. Each painting is added to the Estate’s sizeable private art collection, a selection of which is open for public viewing in the art gallery under the Margaret River Cellar Door. The space was renovated in 2018 and is used for functions and intimate classical music concerts.

Building blocks

The backbone behind Art Series Chardonnay is always parcels of fruit from Block 20, which was planted in 1975, and Block 22, planted in 1977. Simone says: ‘Block 20 is a site which expresses wonderful power and intensity of fruit, but it is the tapestry of combining it with the fruit from Block 22 that enables us to create the finest wine from each vintage, a Chardonnay of wonderful symmetry and balance, with incredible length and capacity to age.’

Helicopter Hill and Air Strip West were planted from source material cuttings in 2021. Leeuwin’s viticulturist of 25 years, David Winstanley, is excited. ‘I’m calling it. This will be Art Series in 10 years,’ he declares. ‘This new block is on fantastic lateritic soils, with a north-south orientation.’ The Chardonnay has evolved in the winery over the years. However, the cornerstone of the style has always included a spared oak programme and no malolactic fermentation since the cool vintage of 2006.

Leeuwin’s current senior winemaker, Tim Lovett, took the reins in 2016 and has continued the legacy of Art Series, while progressing with a few stylistic changes in the winery. These include a 20%-30% increase in whole bunch and 70% skin contact for Art Series Chardonnay.

‘From the 2018 vintage onwards is where you start to see the real distinctive key notes of our evolution,’ he explains. ‘Skin contact for six to eight hours amplifies and highlights the expression of the fruit, so everything becomes more concentrated and more powerful. It’s a 100% new oak barrel fermentation, mainly in Bordelais coopered oak, as Bordelaise barrels are fine and tight-grained. The focus is on tension and length.’

Old vine expression

The Art Series Cabernet Sauvignon is the yin to Chardonnay’s yang, and it has gone from strength to strength in recent years. Both the original plantings of Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon are dry-grown, with Art Series centred around Block 8’s low-yielding gnarly vines. They produce fruit from the Houghton clone that is concentrated in intensity, yet retains fresh acidity and a delicate aromatic profile.

Winstanley walks me through the vines on a fresh and damp March morning. ‘They’re very old,’ he explains. ‘Initially, they were machine-harvested, but they are now hand-harvested. They’re much more in tune with their environment. They can fully express themselves now.’

Winstanley has been instrumental in conservation and regenerative practices on the estate. He has planted 30,000 trees over the years, increasing bush corridors for native animals such as the critically endangered common ringtail possum. The Boodjidup Brook has been fenced off from cattle, which has resulted in native herbs and native fish returning to the river.

Leeuwin Estate: the facts

Founded: 1973

Owners: the Horgan family

Location: Witchcliffe, Margaret River, Western Australia

Hectares under vine: 161ha comprising: original estate vineyards (107ha, planted pre-1997), Peppy Park (20ha, planted 1996) East Hill (13ha, planted 2016), Henry’s Vineyard (8ha, planted 2020) Helicopter Hill (10ha, planted 2021), Airstrip West (3ha, planted 2021)

Main varieties: Chardonnay (61.6ha), Cabernet Sauvignon (33.1ha), Riesling (24.8ha), Sauvignon Blanc (14.4ha), Shiraz (16ha)

Annual production: 50,000 12-bottle cases

‘We are just stewards,’ he says. ‘The land will still be here long after we have all departed.’ The estate was one of the first in the region to be certified with Sustainable Winegrowing Australia in 2011, and the transition in the vineyard is palpable with a thick carpet of mid-row cover crop underfoot.

Next to Block 8 is the slightly more vigorous Block 9. Planted at approximately the same time, it shows what a slight aspect and soil shift can do in just a few metres. Art Series Cabernet Sauvignon is fermented and maturated for around 24 months in 50% new Bordeaux coopered oak barrels and 50% one-year-old oak.

Productivity and quality have increased during the past three vintages with the help of a new state-of-the-art berry sorting machine. ‘We’ll start seeing that change come through in the 2021 vintage,’ Lovett adds. Currently, there are 26 parcels to select from in the classification tasting, with this figure on the rise as the new plantings and new clonal material (clone 337) matures.

Spotlight on Shiraz

Shiraz has been the focus at Leeuwin Estate in more recent years. ‘As a region, we have an opportunity to take this story to the world. The story that Margaret River is not just about Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay, which we hit our groove with very early. There’s so much going into our Art Series Shiraz; it’s almost pioneering a new varietal again,’ says Simone.

Determined to raise the profile of Margaret River Shiraz, one point of conversation is the name of the grape variety. The flavour profile and structure of this mid-weight red lie firmly in the realm of Syrah. Several other producers prefer to use this name for their cool climate wines.

The Art Series is certainly a cooler climate Shiraz, with finely grained tannins and fruit in the plush yet vibrant spectrum, plus plenty of natural acidity to keep the palate light on its feet. Most of Leeuwin’s Shiraz is currently the WA clone and is grown in the cooler inland Peppy Park vineyard, about a 25-minute drive south of the winery.

New clones – New Zealand’s Waldron clone and the 470 Rhône clone – plus graftings from Peppy Park were established in Henry’s vineyard in 2019. Looking at the fruit on the vine on this early March morning, Winstanley is confident that this will be the first year that the fruit is destined for Art Series. Each clone will be separately vinified before blending.

The Shiraz programme has been evolving consistently each year, with large-format demi-muids introduced in 2014, whole cluster and whole bunch fermentation, as well as mild carbonic maceration in warmer years. The fruit is individually berry sorted, cold soaked for five hours (first five days), with 18 months in oak.

Lovett says: ‘We tend not to concentrate too much on tonnes per hectare but more on kilos per vine. Art Series Shiraz is all about softness, texture, perfume and aromatics. We are excited over the next couple of years to introduce fruit from the new plantings on our home estate into the mix.’

See notes and scores for seven Leeuwin Estate Art Series wines including two new releases

Related articles

• Western Australia: Predictions for 2024
• Elderton: over 40 years of Cabernet and Shiraz in the Barossa Valley
• Australian Chenin Blanc: 15 of the best bottles available today