Great Southern wines: Australia’s biggest secret

Ask most people to name a Western Australian (WA) wine region, and it’s unlikely that their first answer would be Great Southern. Yet, according to Wine Australia – source of all the statistics in this article – this GI (Geographical Indication) covers approximately 17,000km² and houses 23% of the state’s vineyards.

And there is vast diversity in terroir and grape varieties in Great Southern’s five official sub-regions: Albany, Denmark, Frankland River, Mount Barker and Porongurup. Fruit quality is high (some of Australia’s leading premium wine brands source fruit for their icon-tier wines from here), and there is competition to access the best growers.

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores for 30 Great Southern wines worth seeking out

More than half of the region’s production is red, but Riesling is the hero variety, both for quality and excellent value. Of 151 wines submitted for my tasting for this article, 36 were Riesling.

The next largest entry was Shiraz, the grape that best speaks of the personality of this place and its people. Just over 25% of Australia’s entire Shiraz crush hails from Great Southern. However, some outstanding cooler climate Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir are produced here too.

The Great Southern is a region that continues to mystify wine consumers for several reasons. Cellar doors are few and far between, and driving distances are vast. It is the epitome of slow travel, but well worth a road trip.

While its vineyards and pioneering winemakers might be steeped in WA’s wine history, recent changes paint the picture of a progressive region. Great Southern has embraced alternative varieties, changes of ownership, new plantings, clonal experimentation, forward-thinking vineyard management techniques and new wine labels.

Reinventing tradition

The vineyard at Forest Hill is a special place. The gnarly old vines of Block One are living history and responsible for the start of the region’s success: a bottle of its 1975 Riesling was the first to make its mark on the national wine show circuit. Tony and Betty Pearce planted these experimental vineyard vines, with Betty playing them music to foster growth.

The 58-year-old roots dig deep into the loam, yet plenty has evolved since winemaker and general manager Guy Lyons returned to the family business in 2015.

‘We’ve got an awesome historic vineyard that can make exciting wines. I’m focused on getting back to basics,’ he explains. ‘In the vineyard I’m looking at vigour, vine and soil health, plus plantings and new clones. In the winery, it’s about making wine we’re interested in drinking.’

Progressive vineyard techniques include layering the old vines to improve vineyard health as well as mid-row subsoil irrigation to combat increasingly unpredictable rainfall and some very dry years.

‘It was a bit of a gamble,’ says Lyons. ‘But because we’ve got dry-grown root structures, we don’t want to change that by drip feeding. We are trying to preserve old-vine structure and character.’

Embracing sustainability

Across the Great Southern, there is an increase in vineyards practising organically, if not actually certified. In Forest Hill’s case, it’s a tricky balance. Sadly, the vineyard was hit with frost in late spring and 40% of this year’s production has been lost.

Gazing over the Block Nine, dry-grown Shiraz, Lyons adds, ‘We’ve never been frosted here. Down near the valley we have, but not here, so it’s unprecedented and disappointing. But that’s farming.’

On the other side of this vast region, in Porongurup, I meet Ben and Sarah Cane, who took ownership of Duke’s Vineyard in 2022. Duke Ranson founded the winery in 1999 with his wife Hilde on the cusp of his 60th birthday and, over time, built a loyal following for their sought-after Riesling, Cabernet and Shiraz.

Ben is busy in the vineyard reworking vines, shifting to organic and biodynamic practices, adjusting trellising techniques and experimenting with wine production.

‘This is a marginal climate for producing late-ripening varieties like Cabernet,’ he says. ‘Duke told me these are white-knuckle varieties: do your viticulture right, then run through the storms and hold your nerve and don’t pick early. Our wines are closer to European styles in their elegance and complexity.’

The aim is total organics in the long run, but he’s keen to get through a few seasons first. ‘There’s being idealistic, and then there’s reality!’ he laughs. They’ve added regional wines to the range, built a clonal and varietal nursery, and tweaked the Riesling with press cuts, time on lees and in oak.

‘I think there’s a propensity for Australian Riesling lovers to want that pure fruit without anything in the way.’

Great Southern at a glance

Location: Great Southern (the First Nations region of Wagyl Kaip in Noongar Boodja) is 420km drive from Perth.

Area under vine: 2,545ha

Sub-regions: Albany, Denmark, Frankland River, Mount Barker and Porongurup. Frankland River and Mount Barker are the largest areas under vine. Denmark offers more cellar doors.

History: The first commercial vines were planted in Mount Barker in 1965 at the Forest Hill Vineyard. Mount Barker was Western Australia’s first official sub-region.

Climate: Largely Mediterranean, although ranges from maritime on the coast to continental inland. Vineyard altitude peaks at 380m. Average rainfall is 240mm, with higher rainfall in coastal sub-regions.

Soils: Ancient and diverse soils, up to 2.8 billion years old. Most are either lateritic gravel or sandy granitic loams over clay and moderately fertile. Frankland River is known for its ironstone soils that often impart a ferrous quality to the wines.

Varieties: Riesling, Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon are historically identified with the region, and alternative varieties include Grenache, Mourvèdre, Malbec, Mencía, Tempranillo, Grüner Veltliner and Gewürztraminer.

Recent vintages: 2021 was slightly cooler and 2022 was hot and dry. 2023 was troublesome in the vineyard, with late rains and long flowering producing yields lower than normal but of high quality. 2024 looks promising for both yield and quality.

Number of wineries: More than 70, whose fruit goes into their own wine and/or sold to premium wineries not based in the Great Southern.

(Source: Wine Australia)

Striving for diversity

Ten minutes’ drive down the road is Castle Rock Estate. Angelo and Wendy Diletti founded it in 1981 and their winemaking son Rob Diletti now manages the 12.5ha of vineyard. ‘Dad was not a viticulturist or winemaker, but he did a lot of research before planting the vineyard,’ explains Rob.

‘I believe its success is the easterly aspect. It’s in a specific, isolated pocket where the elevation is 300m and we have more rain. The northern side is drier as the Porongurup range acts as a rain shadow.’

The site has proven excellent for Riesling and Pinot Noir thanks to its soil diversity. ‘It’s amazing how quickly they change from granite to coffee rock to ancient sands,’ he says.

Rob, like others in the region, is experimenting with clones, however, he’s also looking at rootstocks – WA is still a phylloxera-free zone. ‘For us, going forward is about having as much diversity as possible, whether that’s the site, clonal material or rootstock.’

He aims for more nuanced management of the vineyard’s vigour by pairing clone, rootstock and site. Is climate change evident? ‘I don’t think 40 years is long enough to see a big trend in rainfall, but we definitely see a five-year cycle and we’re picking earlier than we used to, but canopy management changes brought ripening forward.’

There’s expansion on the horizon too. ‘It’s taken 20 years, but I have a new site. I want something that looks like Castle Rock; the wines to express our site’s uniqueness.’ Changes will include higher vine density – from 1,800 to 4,000 vines per hectare, predominantly planted with Pinot. ‘Shiraz is oversupplied Australia-wide at the moment, but Porongurup Pinot and Riesling are in demand.’

Dreams and legacies

Howard Park’s 60ha Mount Barrow vineyard sits in the neighbouring sub-region of Mount Barker. ‘It was Jeff Burch’s dream,’ shares viticulturist Steve Kirby. ‘He wanted to prove WA could do high-end sparkling and Pinot Noir. They founded the vineyard here for elevation and because it faces the south to receive cooling breezes. It’s never as hot as elsewhere.’

The site is low-yielding and the main hillside was planted like a massive trial, with multiple clones at multiple elevations. ‘The picking difference can be a week from the top to the bottom.’

Plantagenet is a name synonymous with the establishment of WA’s wine industry; Tony Smith established its first vineyard, Bouverie, in 1968. Today the owners are Tom and Jo Wisdom, who purchased it in 2021. ‘We’re trying to re-energise a piece of WA’s wine history and retain its legacy,’ says Tom.

With new ownership came structural changes; the winery infrastructure and several vineyards were sold. ‘We are much leaner now. We own the key vineyard, Wyjup, and we lease others. But most importantly, we hold to the historical Plantagenet style.’

Tom shares that the industry is under significant pressure due to market saturation, and though some vineyards have been pulled, he remains hopeful. ‘The Great Southern has a lot of opportunities. Some of the wines coming out are fantastic, and I think there is more awareness of the region, which will hopefully drive demand. There’s an entrepreneurial spirit here.’

Entrepreneurial spirits

Two of those entrepreneurial spirits are siblings Matt and Janelle Swinney, whose first vintage of their Swinney wines was in 2018. They have been growing grapes on the family farm for much longer but in just five vintages of their own project, their flagship wines have made their mark.

They have assembled an impressive team, including viticulturist Rhys Thomas and winemaker Rob Mann, co-owner with his wife Genevieve of Corymbia in Swan Valley and grandson of the legendary WA winemaker Jack Mann.

‘The wines are getting finer and longer,’ says Mann. ‘Australians are a bit scared of tannins, as there is the tendency to overproduce. But we are farming tannins; that’s how we look at it.’

Swinney farms organically, focusing on labour-intensive bush vines and Rhône varieties. ‘Our fruit is very good quality, but we don’t use it ourselves if it doesn’t stick with our storyline,’ says Matt. With 250ha under vine, Swinney provides grapes for several producers, and there is high demand due to the quality and varieties on offer.

The vineyards have already reaped the benefit of two frost fans – the first in WA – and overhead irrigation as insurance against frost. ‘That’s the next place we are going to plant,’ Matt says, pointing to a steep site with pea-gravel sands in the distance. ‘It’s a huge project, with new irrigation and infrastructure, but that’s where we want to be in five to 10 years.’

Big region, small community

Brave New Wines is one of several avant-garde wineries in Great Southern. Husband and wife team Yoko Luscher-Mostert and Andries Mostert bootstrapped their label in 2013. ‘We were lucky we started then, as we could reach people at a distance through Instagram,’ recalls Yoko.

Since then, the popularity of their initial flagship wines – pét-nats – has waned, with, consumers now wanting chilled reds and oaked Chardonnay. ‘We can be quite flexible,’ says Yoko. ‘We don’t have to make the same wines every year.’

The couple love the diversity that the Great Southern allows them, along with the friendship of like-minded winemakers. ‘We share equipment, we support each other. We’re all mates. It’s a big region, but too small a community not to get along with one another.’

Great Southern wines: 30 to seek out

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