The New Guard

There is a new guard of winemakers in the Swan Valley shaking things up and building a reputation for the region with the next generation of wine drinkers in the hip wine bars and bottle shops of Perth and

beyond. By FERGAL GLEESON

Vino Volta

Funky and fresh

Vino Volta ‘owner, maker, doer’ Garth Cliff has been making wine for 20 years. The past 10 years before his own label were spent at Houghton, the Swan Valley’s most famous producer. In 2018, along with wine region with lots of old vines. It has the ability to produce brilliant wines. However many of the producers are doing things like they have always done, in fact some vineyards are abandoned.”

Vino Volta makes Chenin Blanc in four different styles: Nothing Wrong with Old Skool is a classic clean and crisp dry white, Funky & Fresh is whole bunch-pressed to old oak for complexity, Method Ancestrale is a Chenin Pet Nat, where the wine is bottled before fermentation is completed, creating fizz. Finally there’s Beneath the Flor made in a dry white sherry style.

Vino Volta makes different interpretations of Grenache, another regional hero. The warm climate suits whites like Fiano, which is new to the region. Garth and team also make a Frontignac and Gewurztraminer blend, historic varietals but made as a skin contact wine.

partner Kirsten, he started Vino Volta.

“We want to be part of a new wave of producers that is going to change things, focus on quality, focus on what the region is best at and build on this with new varieties,” says Garth.

“Swan Valley is a bit of an underdog

Garth sums up the style: “We are making medium bodied, interesting, textural wines. We like fruit brightness and we like texture. One of the focuses is to get Chenin truly recognised as making a wide range of tasty, age-worthy wines.” Visit vinovolta.com.au

Chouette Wine

Next gen Valley crew

Chouette Wine is Tom Daniel, a secondgeneration Swan Valley winemaker. Tom grew up on a vineyard called Susannah Brook Wines, which his father planted. Like Vino Volta, there’s a focus on Chenin and Grenache from old vines.

“All my Swan Valley fruit is handpicked, hand-worked and basket-pressed, while all along the journey I use traditional techniques with a view to deliciousness at the forefront. I really want to highlight what Swan Valley fruit can be with a fresh approach to wine,” Tom says.

“Sadly, heaps of heritage vineyards have been pulled out over the years, so it’s my hope that there’s a revival of the Swan Valley region. I’m keen to be a big contributing champion who will continue to halt this. The stories of the growers and the personality of the old vineyards of the Swan is a story I want to help tell through my wine.”

The range includes a variety of pet nats, whites, rosés and reds. The wines are unfined and unfiltered and many have had skins contact or lees stirring for complexity.

“Chouette Wines are made to be bright, textural, vibrant and moreish, using lo-fi and minimal intervention principles of production,” says Tom.

“I aim to make wine that’s alive in the glass and has personality.” Visit chouettewine.com

FRESH DROPS Left, clockwise, Chouette Wines with winemaker Tom Daniel (image by Strange Company), and Local Weirdos Wine, made up of a collection of friends, planting old vine Grenache and Semillon. Opposite, Vina Volta.

Local Weirdos Wine

Friends collab

The local weirdos on the label are a group of friends (a doctor, a winemaker and two brothers from the Perth coffee scene) who have taken over some vineyards in the Swan Valley, planted with old vine Grenache and Semillon. They’ve also gone the extra yards and converted them to organics.

Winemaker Sam Jorgensen describes Local Weirdos Wines as a combination of “basic joy and deeper complexity that exist to highlight our passion for the preservation (environmentally, culturally, historically and economically) and celebration of our unique locality.

“Our wines hopefully represent to the consumer an expansion of the horizon of possibility for wines in the Swan Valley.”

It sounds like a deeply personal approach to building on the Valley’s historic connection to wine.

“All the wines evoke for me distinctive and powerful emotions,” Sam explains. “Memories of the methods we experimented with in the vineyard and the cellar, recollections of the joy and considerable labour in the creation of wines of which we could be truly proud.”

Sam’s personal favourite is the Pet Nat 2020 Turbulent Juice (pictured above).

Sam describes it as a wine that “pulses with electricity and life. It rewards both those desiring something fun and joyful and the complexity of a great skin contact wine.” Visit localweirdos.wine

Corymbia Wine

Wine is in their blood

Corymbia wines are made by Rob and Genevieve Mann (pictured above) from vineyards they farm from dirt to bottle in the Swan Valley.

They say that wine is in their blood and they may have a point. Rob’s grandfather Jack Mann was one of Australia’s most renowned winemakers having been the winemaker at Houghton for 51 vintages. Rob’s uncle Dorham Mann OAM, was highly influential in the pioneering days of Margaret River at Sandalford. Rob’s father Tony ‘Rocket’ Mann was an Australian test cricketer as well as a vigneron.

Rob himself was chief winemaker at Cape Mentelle and Hardy’s Tintara. His wife Genevieve has made wine in South Africa, France, California and Howard Park Wines in Western Australia.

Corymbia Wines makes just two wines, a red and a white, from their Swan Valley vineyard - a Tempranillo Malbec blend and a Chenin Blanc. The fruit is from an organically farmed, single vineyard that is dry grown. Winemaking is traditional using techniques such as hand harvesting, gravity, oak fermentation, indigenous yeast and natural malolactic fermentation.

“Our wines express the qualities of the Swan Valley that Rob’s family has become admired for in the region for over 100 years,” Genevieve tells me.

“What’s old is new again,” she says. “Our family has always made wines from dry grown Swan Valley vineyards. Rob’s Grandfather Jack Mann released a dry white table wine in 1937, made from 100 per cent Chenin Blanc.

“He also made dry red wines that were medium-bodied, full-flavoured, fruit-driven wines. They’re beautifully balanced with great drinkability.”

The legacy is in safe hands as Rob and Genevieve continue the family’s connection with winemaking at a high level.

“We continue to make wines with the same guiding principles as these are the styles that suit our climate and most importantly complement the food we love to share around the family table.” SV Visit corymbiawine.com.au